"Spam is at the top of our hit list for very good reasons: 45 percent of all e-mail is spam, 2.7 trillion spam messages are sent each year, 13 times the total of snail-mail delivered by our U.S. Postal Service. The average wired American is deluged by 2,200 spam messages each year, and that's after ISPs have filtered out an estimated 80 to 90 percent. Some say that number would increase fivefold in the near future. It is estimated that spam costs legitimate businesses some US $9 billion a year in the United States."<br>

Attorney General Christine Gregoire. General Gregoire is the chief law enforcement officer for the State of Washington. Her statement above was made during a Microsoft press conference on June 17, 2003, announcing new anti-spam legal action. (emphasis added).