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MONEY COMMENT
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According to the European Commission unsolicited emails cost businesses an estimated £1.5 billion in lost productivity last year. I can see why. I'm probably getting about a dozen spam emails a day at the moment and it irritates me no end. It's a waste of my time and my space on my hard drive and, besides, I don't need any help with the size of my penis, thanks very much. I make an effort to do that Block Sender thing before hitting the Delete button but still they keep coming. Unfortunately, most of these emails come from the US so it's not possible to take any action against these annoying little people who flood our inboxes every day but if any come from within the UK or anywhere in the EU, we've now got a means of getting back at them Under new regulations companies or individuals who send unsolicited commercial emails face a fine of up to £5,000. If the offender ends up in front of a jury rather than a magistrates' court, the fine is unlimited and, even better, if the recipient has suffered damages because of the email, the sender can be sued. The new rules apply to mobile phone operators too so if you receive spam from anyone in the UK or EU, contact the Information Commissioner. It's a pity there's nothing we can do about the biggest source of these emails – the US – so the new laws probably won't have much of an effect on our inboxes. However, junk mail in any form is irritating so for the most part the only thing you can do is to try and block it where you can. This goes for unwanted mail, telephone and fax equivalents too and there's a much simpler way of dealing with that. Pop over to the Mailing Preference Service website and sign up to remove yourself from the UK direct marketing system. The telephone and fax removal service can be found on the same site. I signed up a while ago for these services and can tell you that I don't miss phone calls from double-glazing salesmen during supper one little bit. Find out more about the Mailing Preference Service.