The latest research from Yahoo! has found that an average PC will suffer nine 'sick days' per year due to e-mail SPAM and viruses. More over, the junk phenomenon (do doo di do do) is causing users stress:

Nearly half of British computer users find dealing with junk e-mails more stressful than traffic jams and the majority want service providers to act.

Over half of the 2,500 people questioned by Yahoo as part of its anti-spam campaign had asked their provider to do something to stop the deluge of junk e-mails they were receiving.

Around a third of people would be prepared to make a drastic lifestyle change, such as exercising five times a week, if it meant an end to spam.

Sadly filters are not 100% effective and often lead to the loss of legitimate messages, which could add to the stress rather than take it away.

Having said that, ISP's should at least be able to offer some style of user governed anti-SPAM filter and EVERY provider should have an anti-virus system as standard (easy to identify infected attachments).

Thankfully a growing number are beginning to adopt this and new identification technologies have been developed, but this also needs to be combined with anti-spam laws that actually work. More @ BBC News Online.