Steve Ballmer says Bill Gates gets 4 million e-mails a day.
Ballmer said Microsoft has special technology that just filters spam intended for Gates. In addition, several Microsoft employees are dedicated to ensuring that nothing unwanted gets into his inbox.
“Literally there’s a whole department almost that takes care of it,” he said.
Bill has had the same e-mail address for as long as I can remember, and it’s been printed in more places than anyone can count. Still, you have to be pretty amused at the notion that the world’s richest man would even think of buying a fake Rolex or male enhancement products via an anonymous e-mail message.
I’ve had the same e-mail address since 1994. Most spam gets blocked at the server, with a combination of SpamAssassin and some manual filters I’ve set up. When I shut off those filters, I get roughly 200-300 unwanted messages a day. With them in place, I’ve cut the flood to a trickle of fewer than 10 spams a day, and virtually all of those are filtered into my Junk Mail folder in Outlook.
Do you have a spam horror story or a favorite spam-blocking product? Click the Comments link and give me the details.
Ed Bott 
Actually, I don’t have a favorite spam blocking product, at least not at the e-mail client level. I’ve tried lots of them, and all of them are more or less equally mediocre at best. It takes about as much time to filter and review the junk to make sure it is junk than it does to delete it manually in the first place. One can also attempt to minimize the problem with manual rules and filters, but this has also proven to be a losing battle.
In my opinion, the only effective way to fight spam is at the server level (e.g. ISP spam-filtering), i.e. before the barbarians ever get inside the gate (your e-mail client) in the first place. Many ISPs now offer spam filtering, and the one that my ISP uses is particularly effective. Between the ISP filter and Outlook 2003, I now only rarely need to deal with spam. I only wish the ISP had started doing filtering sooner — I would have saved a ton of money on anti-spam programs. π
The only effective spam solution I’ve found has been to change my email address every 10-12 months for my own domain. It works! I know that’s not feasible for many, but while email has always been quick, with the deluge of spam it’s not been an effective. I know people in law offices who actually pick up the phone and ask, “Did you get my email?” What kills me is how spam is on autopilot Β I get the same 18 emails every single day from a different address, of course.
Ed: I’ve been using SpamBayes for Outlook for a long time and it generally works well (and it’s free). On top of Spam Assassin running on our mail server, it catches 90%+ of the detritus.
I’m currently testing Spam Bully for Outlook. It has two nice features that I think make the investment (~$30) worthwhile. First, it will bounce e-mails which over time should get your e-mail address removed from a lot of spam lists.
Second, it has a built-in challenge/response system which works along with rules-based and Bayesian filtering. A pretty potent combination.
I’ll have a review on my blog after I’ve finished the evaluation.