Bill's spam army

Think your inbox is plagued with spam? Does every day bring dozens more shysters to your door? You ain't got nothing to worry about compared with Bill Gates, who gets four million spams a day, according to MS CEO Steve Ballmer.

Ballmer himself reckons he's not far behind but before you begin feeling sorry for them buried under a hail of marketing shills, get this: Ballmer reveals they have a whole department devoted to filtering Bill and his e-mails.

The result: only a handful of mortgage offers, Viagra discounts and free porn make it through to the great men's inbox. No wonder my suggestions to billg@microsoft.com and steveb@microsoft.com have been ignored.