The Washington Post reports that ISP giants and rivals Microsoft and AOL are working together to help craft legislation on the federal and state level to fight the uncontrollable tide of spam that plagues their respective subscribers, which total over 140 million. To provide some perspective on the enormity of the problem, AOL alone claims to block about 780 million spam e-mails bound for customers each day.
In related news, a survey by Assurance Systems concluded that “opt-in” e-mail is routinely blocked by major ISPs, with AOL ranking third on the list with an 18% non-delivery rate.