Minding Your Business: Canning Spam
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Here's Andy Serwer.</s>ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Hey. Well, you know, and a lot of this stuff, the spam is the prescription drug ads. I mean, that's a big problem. This is outrageous what's going on. And now, finally Congress is doing something about it. Yesterday, in case you didn't know, the Senate voted 97-0 to rolling out some spam legislation. It still needs to go to the House. Here are some numbers that are truly staggering: 14.5 billion spam messages a day are being sent out now as opposed to 2.3 billion last year. That's right, almost a sevenfold increase. And, you know, while I defended the telemarketers, you guys, because it's good for the economy and jobs, and I was being a little facetious there. But actually, I don't mind the telemarketers. Spam is bad stuff, because it is inhibiting people from doing their jobs. I mean, you can't do your e-mail anymore. I get about 100 e-mails a day now.</s>HEMMER: It cuts down on productivity.</s>SERWER: Fifty percent of it is spam. And the other thing about spam that's really bad is the fact that it's this prescription drugs from overseas, pornography, all the rest of the stuff. If you have kids, they're starting to get into their accounts. And so, I am way for this. I really think it's a great idea, and it's going to take awhile.</s>HEMMER: So, you've come around.</s>SERWER: I've come -- no, well, this is a whole different subject. I think it's going to take awhile. The House still needs to get to it. Don't expect anything to happen until next year. But I think it's coming, and I think it's a good thing.</s>HEMMER: Good deal. OK, the markets got hammered yesterday. We'll talk about that next time around, huh?</s>SERWER: Yes,</s>HEMMER: Wow! OK, thank you, Andy.</s>SERWER: OK. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.