You thought you got a lot of useless snail mail. Spam email has become out of control. One company you may trust sells your email address to another because you were kind enough to purchase a cute little item for your son or daughter. They sell it to another and then another. In a short period of time you are getting dozens of email from people you never heard of.

Spam derives its name from a nonsensical sketch by the 1970s British comedy troupe Monty Python. It featured a chorus of Vikings singing the word Spam - referring to the luncheon meat - over and over again. Their voices drown out all conversation at a café, in much the same way Spam foes fear that unsolicited email threatens to overwhelm Internet communications.

One Spam emailer was able to shut down eBay for an entire afternoon with thousands of emails clogging up their server. It took several hours to filter this out. What is with people? This is not a wise use of Internet time.

One of the worst with about junk email is they could have a virus attached and then you have a real problem. Then the question is, will Norton or another virus program even catch it.

I still have my very first email account. This account started in 1994/1995 from a very good local server company. I check it about every three days. Tonight I have 275 emails, one of which I truly wanted, an old friend who emailed me after all these years.

I can have larger breasts, I can get Viagra for a discount. I can see teens do things with people I do not know. I can make tons of money in my spare time. I can get a new mortgage (do I have to own a home first?). I can get a credit card without any pre approval. I can do just about anything but receive useful emails.

I did not apply or request any of this email from any of these people. I have not signed up for any of this. I did, however, purchase items online. Most did not have a box or I did not see any box that would restrict any of these folks from selling my email addresses to hundreds of willing people ready to pay for it.

You can purchase a disc at your local Staples or Circuit City with 250,000 or more guaranteed real email accounts. They are right. I know someone who thought they would market real estate using email. They purchased this disc.

My email address was on it. I felt famous. I felt abused. I knew I was going to get more and more junk email.

Using email to market something is a very good and useful tool. You should market to the right people, people who want what you have to offer. I do not need larger breasts (I am a man) or to have parts of my body inches longer, I am quite happy how I am. I was upset to get email that said I could loose 20 pounds in 20 days, how did they know?

How do we stop this abuse of our privacy? Actually there is not any legislation that stops people from sending emails. They are supposed to offer a way to remove you from the list. I think that when you ask to be removed, you actually are telling these people that this email address is a good address. They will remove you but sell it to others as a verified address. You still lose.

So what do we do? Well, you can never purchase anything online. –or- before you fill out the form to purchase anything, check to see if there is a privacy act or statement that guarantees your privacy.