Bill Gates wants to make spamming too expensive

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is inundated with up to four million e-mails a day - most of them junk.

However, the software magnate has almost an entire department working to filter out unwanted mails.

The company's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, said Mr Gates was probably the most "spammed" person in the world.

Spam, or junk e-mails, are unsolicited messages often sent indiscriminately, usually trying to sell goods and services from aphrodisiacs to loans.

Speaking at a Microsoft event in Singapore, Mr Ballmer said: "Bill Gates (is first) because he is Bill Gates. Bill literally receives four million pieces of e-mail per day, most of it spam."

"Literally there's a whole department almost that takes care of it," he said.

Mr Ballmer said he was "probably also amongst the most spammed people in the world", because he gives out his email address whenever he makes a speech.

But he said only about 10 e-mails a day made it through to his inbox, because of anti-spam technology that filters the messages.

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in January, Mr Gates predicted that technology would make spam "a thing of the past" within two years.

(Agencies)