Seems like I stand corrected. Spam is evil and filters are not doing their job. U.S. senators will today release a new national survey showing that email users overwhelmingly favor a federal do-not-spam list. The survey, conducted by ePrivacy Group and the Ponemon Institute, also shows that almost 80% of consumers want a federal law banning spam.

Other key findings indicate current solutions to stop unwanted email, such as filtering and opt-out mechanisms, are not working. Many consumers spend 30 minutes or more each day just dealing with spam. On the hot topic of spoofed email, over 60% of persons surveyed had received fake or spoofed email from a trusted brand, with many reporting that such messages contained pornography, a computer virus, or a false message. Electronic copies will be available later today.

Well, this is all true, and some laws might be a good thing. But won’t that just shove everything offshore? I hate spam as much as the next guy, but I reckon the secret is just to make it so unprofitable for them that they slink away and train spot, or whatever it was they did before. That means not just laws, but assiduous spam filtering.