Spam and the social-technical gap

The runaway increase in spam cannot be stemmed by technical change alone. Spam currently constitutes up to 30 percent of all in-box messages. In these spam wars, as filters become more intelligent so do spammers´ countermeasures. The continued growth of spam suggests the need for a new approach. Although most see spam as a personal problem, we suggest it is a social problem that needs a social response. Yet traditional social responses - law, courts, and the judiciary seem to work poorly in cyberspace. We propose bridging the gap between society and technology by applying social concepts to technology design.