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  3. About forty percent of all email traffic in the United States is spam, and this figure is climbing rapidly. Spam is usually defi

About forty percent of all email traffic in the United States is spam, and this figure is climbing rapidly. Spam is usually defi

admin2019-07-19  56
问题     About forty percent of all email traffic in the United States is spam, and this figure is climbing rapidly. Spam is usually defined as unsolicited, mass commercial email. It is often associated with advertisements for pornographic websites, drugs, or surgery that can enhance your sex life. Within another year or so, industry experts predict, half of all email messages will be unsolicited.

    The flood of email marketing causes headaches for email users. Additionally, it costs corporations billions of dollars and reduces employee productivity. According to a recent study, the average employee spends almost seven minutes per day handling an average of 13 spam messages. This translates to major corporate losses. The annual cost of spam has reached $ 9 billion for US corporations alone.
    Perhaps worst of all, spam baffles anti-spammers, who haven ’ t yet come up with a solution to this growing problem. In fact, the only proven way to stop spare is not to have an email address.
    Internet service providers are the front line defenders against spam. ISPs like America Online, Microsoft, and Earthlink employ anti-spam technicians. These employees run spam filters. They physically watch the sending of email, keeping an eye out for sudden mass mailings. When a mailing looks suspicious, the anti-spammers check the owner of the sending address. However, addresses are difficult to track and easy for spammers to hide.
    Spammers are creative, most recently using a trick called the "dictionary attack". With special software, spammers can generate millions of random entail addresses using combinations of letters such as "Joe236," placed in front of the "@ aol. com" part of the address. Enough of these addresses are correct that the email reaches millions of email users.
    In the United States, the situation has prompted calls for national legislation. State-level anti-spam laws have had limited effectiveness with few convictions. Major ISPs are aggressively pushing for national laws against spamming.
    On the other side of the issue, the direct-marketing industry and some Internet retailers have successfully fought federal law, which go against free-speech provisions of the Constitution.
    The European Union has adopted a practical ban on spam called an "opt-in" system, in which companies have to wait for consumers to request commercial email before it can be sent to them.
Until technology or anti-spam laws become more effective, people are taking small steps to fight spam on their own. For example, one computer consultant has created email accounts for the specific purpose of attracting spam. After he receives spam, he searches for the sender. His goal is to collect and publicize "blacklists" of spammers’ Internet addresses. These are then incorporated into spam filters that block any email coming from those addresses.
    Email users can take a few easy steps to fight spam.
    Don’t click the "unsubscribe" link. One would think that "unsubscribe" would take you off a list. However, spammers have taken over the unsubscribe option, making it a confirmation of an active account. It is better just to delete the email.
    Keep many email accounts. By using separate accounts for electronic business and personal use, you can keep your personal address cleaner.
    Choose a long email name. Use a mix of letters and numbers. This decreases the chance that a computer-generated email address will match yours.
    Avoid Web-based discussion groups. Spammers frequently take addresses from the Internet. Online groups are easy to find.
    Avoid contests and surveys. Again, spammers often gather addresses from the Web.
    Look into new filtering software. ISPs and other firms offer many creative solutions to spam.
    Email communication has become the fundamental means of communication in the Information Age. However, it may soon be considered useless, as consumers are choking on spam. If every company freely sent unsolicited commercial advertisements, junk email would completely overrun us. Already, users are avoiding the Internet because they don’ t like the huge amounts of junk they are forced to see.
What position do major ISPs take towards spam?
选项 A、They encourage it.
B、They are against it.
C、They think anti-spam legislation violates individual rights.
D、They find they just can’t do anything about it.
答案B
解析 由原文中Major ISPs are aggressively pushing for national laws against spamming．一句可知，major ISPs极力争取通过抵制垃圾邮件的法律。
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本试题收录于： A类竞赛（研究生）题库大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）分类
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