Top companies to unite to battle spam

America Online, Microsoft and Yahoo! Inc have said that they are to work together to find ways to block unidentified e-mail messages and stop the creation of fraudulent e-mail accounts.

Users have been requesting their internet service providers to find some way of cutting down on junk mail.

Nicholas Graham, at America Online said "Spammers are public enemy No. 1".

Internet service providers have already been making efforts to cut spam.

America Online, for example, has filed lawsuits against a group of people who sent more than one billion unsolicited messages.

In this new initiative the three companies will work together to share the techniques they use to identify the authors of these type of e-mail.