A casual glance at my spam folder today shows nearly 850 bulk messages sitting there. Thanks, Gmail, for catching those and preventing them from reaching my in-box. Now, about the spam e-mails that have been reaching my in-box, such as the one I received this morning that is written in German, what gives? Oh, and the Nigerians have found me again.Spam still continues to be a worldwide problem. I first signed up with Gmail years ago specifically for its spam filters (OK, the 1 GB of storage was an enticement at the time, too). Spam just ticks me off.

For years, I was pleased that Gmail's spam filters kept bulk messages out of my in-box. My Hotmail and Yahoo mail accounts did not provide such good protection from the scheming hordes. I routinely had to delete dozens, if not hundreds, of junk mail messages from my in-box each week. No so with Gmail. Until recently, that is.

About a year ago, I noticed that spam e-mails were occasionally sneaking past Google's filters. Maybe one a day, or so. Last fall, that swelled to about 10 per day. This spring, it's slowly been creeping up and up and up. I am concerned about the stuff that appears to befuddle Gmail's filters.

I've been receiving more and more e-mail from foreign countries that arrive in that foreign language. Today's e-mail from Germany isn't unique. E-mails that arrive in other languages are puzzling. German, Russian, Chinese, etc., aren't uncommon to see in my in-box anymore. Shouldn't e-mails from any language other than the one a user uses be automatically filtered out?

What's more disturbing is that the Nigerians have found me again. As have the purveyors of bedroom-enhancing products. These types of e-mails are so old that I am surprised any e-mail with the words "prince," "jewel," "mine," "inherited," and unprintable others are even allowed to transit the Internet.

I am just curious, Google, to know what's up.

(As an aside, perhaps the funniest thing I've seen Gmail do is send press releases from Google to my spam filter. Oh, how I laughed...)