Wired On Friday: People send about 7.2 billion email messages a day in the United States. It is estimated that half of all email sent is spam - that is, unsolicited bulk email advertisements - and two-thirds of it often has a misleading subject line or a false return address, writes Carol Power.

Research has shown about 20 per cent of email is job-related, 18 per cent is adult oriented and the rest is for credit or dietary supplements.

About 25 states in America have anti-spam laws but low penalties and enforcement problems have made many of the laws ineffective.

Several states, like California, have enacted laws in recent years requiring senders of spam to begin every subject line with the phrase ADV (an abbreviation used to identify advertising) in messages sent to recipients in those states.

The Attorney General of Delaware, Ms Jane Brady, said although the state bans all email spam, it is difficult to enforce.

"We have the toughest spam laws in the country," she claims. "We prohibit the sending of commercial bulk email. We outright ban it whereas most other states regulate it. But, we're finding out that having the toughest laws is not necessarily the answer."

Emails are often sent to anonymous routers and some come from international sources making it more difficult to identify the identity of the sender. So, Ms Brady said, "instead of following the emails, we're following the money".

Some websites will pay a referral fee, say for every person who visits the Web address advertised in an email. By following the money, law enforcers in Delaware were able to track down a credit card company whose executives were making payments for child pornography sites.

"We shut down that site, temporarily at least," Attorney General Brady said.

Certainly after years of doing little, the US government is finally taking action.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) along with the National Association of Attorneys General announced a law enforcement crackdown targeting internet auction scams that cheated thousands of consumers out of their money and their merchandise.

The crackdown, called Operation Bidder Beware, resulted in 50 criminal and civil cases.

Then, the FTC held its first ever forum on spam in Washington, D.C. on April 30th to May 2nd and two weeks ago, the Senate's Commerce Committee held a hearing on spam.

But investigating spam and clamping down on those responsible for sending it requires time, money and industry co-operation.

On April 29th, Virginia strengthened its law to rid the state of spam. The tougher law will impose felony penalties on those who send such email messages through deceptive means to or from Virginia.

Those found guilty of sending more than 10,000 deceptive email messages a day would be subject to a prison term of one to five years; the profits and assets connected with the spamming crime would be seized; and fines could be imposed.

Virginia is working with America Online, which is based in Dulles, Virginia, and other internet companies to enforce the law.

The new anti-spam statute gives law enforcers the ability to bring felony level prosecutions against spammers who use AOL's Virginia-based email servers to send spam to other AOL members in violation of Virginia's Computer Crimes Act.

Other companies whose email servers are located in Virginia - such as Verizon, RoadRunner and UUnet - will be able to benefit from the tough anti-spam provisions of the new law and also refer cases for criminal prosecution.

The kinds of action that can now trigger such penalties, include: forging email header and routing information; sending huge volumes of bulk emails; generating substantial monetary proceeds from spamming; and employing a minor to be an affiliate in the spamming process.

Earlier this month, a spammer in Buffalo, New York was arrested and accused of sending 825 million email messages over Earthlink's internet service by setting up 343 accounts with fraudulent credit card numbers.

Ms Brady, who belongs to an FBI-sponsored group called Infragard, which is a partnership between private industry and the government, said it was important for people to safeguard their computers with new technology.

The threat to privacy is paramount since criminals have become more sophisticated in their ability to hack into people's information, often by circumventing anti-spam filters and by bouncing messages off the computers of innocent third parties.

According to AOL and other internet service providers, more than 200,000 computers in the past two years have been hijacked without the owners' knowledge and are being used to forward spam.

"I think the answer [to fighting spam] lies in technology," Attorney General Brady said.

"Internet service providers will find a way to give consumers the ability to set parameters on their computers to decide what they do or do not receive. In terms of spam, technology will be consumer-driven.

Business will solve this problem before government," she added.