Dump the junk

E-mail

I believe the Internet and e-mail in particular to be the greatest advance in communications since the invention of the postage stamp. Since going on the Net earlier this year, I have found myself corresponding with people, mainly in the States, with whom I would never have had contact had it not been for my trusty PC and modem. All this for the cost of a local phone call.

However, there is one black cloud on the electronic horizon, and that is junk e-mail. Receiving junk mail through one's letter box can be irritating, but at least it is the sender who has paid for the postage. With e-mail it is the receiver who pays the phone bill as the message downloads. It may only be pennies, but as these e-mails, mostly promoting dubious business opportunities and offering lists of e-mail addresses for us to do the same, become more prolific, the cost and the inconvenience is going to increase substantially.

Most of these e-mails emanate from the US, where local calls are free, but until BT sees fit to introduce the same here, I would like to see something done about this problem before it gets out of hand.

E-Mail is a wonderful communication tool that enables us, as never before, to exchange news and ideas across the world. Let's stop this abuse before it devalues the whole system.

Steven Hutton

SHutton277@aol.com

Webzines without paper

In the article "Required Reading" (21 October), Chris Gill laments the fact that some webzines "are clearly not designed to be read online but to be downloaded, printed and read out in paper form". An option he has overlooked is that of getting hold of a copy of an application such as Free Agent, which will allow him to examine his browser's cache offline to his heart's content.

Tim Rowe

tim@coral.compulink.co.uk

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