Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, sees our world free from spam by 2006. He was talking at the World Economic Forum in Switerland and was being interviewed by Charlie Rose, as one would imagine, at a late night event.

"Two years from now, spam will be solved," Bill Gates posits.

From the Associated Press report:
"Gates said his company, at which he retains the title of chief software designer, is working on a "magic solution" based on the concept of "proof" - or identifying the sender of the email. One method involves a human challenge, or requiring the sender of an electronic pitch to solve a puzzle that only a flesh- and- blood person can handle. Another is a so-called "computational puzzle" that a computer sending only a few messages could easily handle, but that would be prohibitively expensive for a mass-mailer. But the most promising, Gates said, was a method that would hit the sender of an e-mail in the pocketbook. People would set a level of monetary risk - low or high, depending on their own choice - for receiving email from strangers. If the e-mail turns out to be from a long-lost relative, for example, the recipient would charge nothing. But if it is unwanted spam, the sender would have to fork over the cash. "In the long run, the monetary (method) will be dominant," Gates predicted. He thought Microsoft's team of software engineers was outrunning the hackers who have caused havoc by unleashing increasingly destructive viruses to attack networked computers. He conceded, however, that it was a tough fight to stay ahead. "If only the bad guys would just do the same stuff they did last year."