> This, and the junk fax experiences, are perhaps why I'm starting to > think legislation, if not the answer, might at least be a powerful > tool. I suspect that reduction in phone/fax spamming is a combination of two factors: legislation imposing stiff penalties combined with the investment and expense required to do phone or fax spamming on a significant scale. The significant investment that is required to do phone or fax spamming has two effects: it reduces the number of potential phone/fax spammers (thus making them easier to identify) and it means that they have real and identifiable assets that can be targeted (and that they need to protect). Also, international calling tarriffs tend to mean that the phone or fax spammer is in the same country and legal jurisdiction as its targets. With email spamming, significantly less investment is required and the costs are not distance sensitive. That's not to say that legislation could not be a useful part of a solution, just that I don't think that legislation by itself would significantly reduce the volume of email spam. Keith