As far as real spam is concerned, the stuff that sells Viagra or promises you sweepstakes winnings, the only thing you can do is train your system to filter it out. The spam filters that come with IE8 work pretty well, and I just have to train it NOT to filter out stuff I want.

As for ads from real companies, all of them I get come with "opt-outs" that will take you off their list. I've never had problems with this method. Up until this week I'd never heard of Epsilon. All the opt-outs have company e-mail addresses. I don't know if the opted-out companies still keep my address on file somewhere - I suspect they do - but I don't get the ads. Unsubscribing is not the same thing as reporting something to a third party as spam.

My wife must get thirty or forty ads a day from catalogs she orders things from, but she actually likes it. It would make me nuts.

As for worrying about my data, the government (IRS) has far, far more personal and financial information on me in their computers than any company or mailing list outfit. I don't lose sleep over that either, and the IRS doesn't have an "opt out" at all.

I have gotten two e-mails warning me about the Epsilon hacking. One from Walgreens.