Email Me CandyA recent Microsoft study found that 97 percent of all email is spam. Ninety-seven percent seems incredibly large but a similar report from Symantec has the number around 95 percent. That means that without some kind of protection, only three out of every hundred emails you get will be legitimately intended for you. Part of the three percent that is good email includes the type now referred to as bacn (email that you've requested, but don't usually read). The lords of the Internet have been unable to come to an agreement on what constitutes junk email and what doesn't. Instead, several camps have been established, along with plenty of renegades, to keep spam out of your inbox.

The problem here is that these competing approaches to filtering often cause bigger problems for you and me. Not a month goes by in my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing company that one of our customers doesn't find herself on somebody's email blacklist. It's frustrating and confusing to them because they haven't done anything that they know of to get on the list, and it's far easier to get on the list than to get off.

The result is that we all tend to trust email less than we used to. Before long, we may not trust it at all. Can you recall the last time you sent an email then called the recipient to be sure he got it?