The daily chore of deleting an irritating influx of spam e-mails is one with which most of us have become depressingly familiar. Each day we are confronted with a bewildering collection of unsolicited messages offering everything from supposedly gilt-edged investment opportunities to instant academic qualifications, surgical operations and even blind dates.
It is an unwelcome byproduct of the internet revolution - and one which is taxing the world's leading technological brains. For the growth of spam is more than a mere irritant for the growing number of computer users - it is a scourge that threatens the future of the internet itself. In Hong Kong alone, it has recently been estimated to cause losses of up to $10 billion a year, with one in every two e-mails received in the city said to be of the spam variety. According to the Hong Kong Anti-Spam Coalition, much of the wastage is caused by the time it takes employees to clear their in-boxes each working day. The group puts global losses at US$10-$20 billion.
We should therefore not be surprised to learn at the weekend that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has declared war on spam - pledging to solve the problem within two years. His company is striving to develop more sophisticated software that will strike at the heart of the spammers. One suggestion is that senders should be required to pay a fee to recipients, which is then cancelled if the e-mail is a legitimate one. It remains to be seen whether such a system can work effectively. But an answer has to be found.
Many countries have sought to use legal remedies to tackle the spammers. An anti-spam bill was passed by the US Senate last year and Australia, Japan and South Korea also have legislation in place to tackle the problem. Hong Kong has not yet introduced specific anti-spam laws, although this is now being discussed. But making legislation effective is not easy, particularly as most of the spammers operate from overseas. Serious consideration should, however, be given to drafting laws that can curb the deluge of unsolicited e-mails.
Spam is, of course, only one of the headaches that have accompanied our embracing of the internet age. Computer hackers remain a source of serious security concerns, sex attackers have abused the ease with which chat rooms can help lure vulnerable victims into their clutches, and child pornography of the digital variety has led to greater exploitation of the young. Then there are the increasingly potent computer worms and viruses that caused so much damage last year.
But this is the price we have to pay for a technological revolution that has transformed the way we live. The internet, like the telephone before it, has become an essential feature of everyday existence. It is difficult to imagine life without it.