They are a digital plague of locusts.

Unsolicited e-mails, also known as spam, clog e-mail boxes and remain one of the biggest headaches for Internet users.

But the problem could be solved by now, if people weren’t resistant to change, according to a Kansas University professor who researches the topic.

“The solution is really staring us in the face,” said Kissan Joseph, associate professor of marketing in KU’s School of Business.

Joseph is a proponent of an economic solution to the spam nightmare.

He believes an economic solution would address the problem better than efforts to legislate against spam or turn to technology as a weapon, with spam detection software and other methods.

To Joseph, spamming will continue so long as it’s economically sensible for people to blanket the world with their messages.

Joseph favors a bond system – a solution that calls for senders to place small bonds in escrow with a third party before delivering e-mails. Recipients can notify the third party if they are irritated by the messages, and the third party can hold the money. If there isn’t a problem, the money is returned to the sender.

The system is offered by some companies and used in some areas, but it has yet to become widespread.

“We haven’t paid enough attention to the economic solutions,” Joseph said.

Paul Messinger, director of the Canadian Institute of Retailing and Services who likes the bond system, said there are details to it that can be worked out.

The third party could be a private bonding company, a government agency or some other entity, he said, and the system would have to be broadly accepted by users.

America Online and Yahoo! recently turned to an economic solution. Both have partnered with a California company that offers CertifiedEmail. The service charges companies a fraction of a penny or more to send messages, which will bypass spam filters, to AOL and Yahoo! users.

Joseph said he thought it was a step in the right direction.

“The postage says: ‘If you want to get on the information highway, you have to pay a toll,'” Joseph said. “The bond actually does one step better. It says: ‘If you use the highway and you haven’t polluted the highway, you’ll get the bond back.'”

But some disagree with Joseph.

Gary Minden, professor in KU’s department of electrical engineering and computer science, said he didn’t believe there was a solution that would completely solve the problem. And in the absence of that, he favors technological solutions.

A perfect system that prevents every spam message from getting to a receiver is unlikely, he said.

“I don’t see getting to 100 percent,” he said. “Getting to 80, 90 or 95 percent is probably reasonable.”

And some users agree. KU student Lilli Johanning, one victim of the incessant messages, said she was used to the daily chore of highlighting and deleting the dozen or more spam notes in her inbox. She doesn’t see a solution.

“I really think that it’s something that you’ve just got to deal with,” she said.