Gates predicts spam will be tamed within two years

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told a Madrid internet forum on 19 November 2004 that junk email should be brought under control within roughly two years, crediting new filtering technologies and stricter legal penalties for spammers.

Gates himself receives an estimated 4 million emails daily, the vast majority of them spam, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. A dedicated anti-spam team blocks nearly all of it before it reaches him.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in November 2004, in its own words.