will email delivery charges mark the end for spam?

Spam is the downside to using email as a communication method and it's getting worse. Last June the number of spam emails in circulation overtook the number of legitimate emails and the figure is still rising fast at 60%. It's a situation that has a negative impact on legitimate email marketers both in terms of perception and in terms of getting your emails through increasingly stringent spam filters, which often block opt-in emails.

But if Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, is to be believed, the end for spam is in sight.

Bill Gates predicts that the world will be spam free by 2006. It's hard to believe given the current state of affairs which continue to escalate even following the recent Can Spam act in the US, where the majority of spam emails originate.

"We as a company believe that by a couple of years from now spam will be down to a very manageable level. It will be almost an afterthought," said Sean Sundwall, a Microsoft spokesman.

Gates himself put forward a number of options to stem the flow of spam including an electronic version of postage whereby the sender pays to have emails delivered. It's not a new concept, the post office have been doing it for years and it would serve to weed out the current shotgun approach employed by unscrupulous spammers who farm the web for email addresses and send everything to everyone. It would ensure that legitimate email is more likely to be read.