"According to Nara Research, there are 20,580,000 domestic Internet users, and the social and economic losses from having to delete spam mail is W2.6 trillion a year. This averages about W130,000 per person," said Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) Cho Han-cheon, who hosted the discussion.

"Koreans receive about 50 spam e-mail messages every day, 64 percent of which are of adult content," said Kim Min-seon, the secretary general of the Parent's Union on Net, an information surveillance group. "These are transmitted directly to children and teenagers, giving them skewed ideas about sex and even hurting their mental health."

Kim quoted the results of a survey taken last May by the Korean Communications Culture Foundation, which found that 18.3 percent of elementary school students, 35.8 percent of middle school students and 49.2 percent of high school students received porn-related spam mail.

Kim suggested instituting a "12 Commandments for Spam Mail" policy, including a system to report spam mailings to the Korea Spam Response Center (02-1336, www.spamcop.or.kr) or to the Fair Trade Commission (www.nospam.go.kr) and provide a program that blocks spam mail.

"To prevent the distribution of porn materials among minors, we should supplement youth protection laws, like those in England or Japan, and prepare a detailed and firm law," said Kim Sang-hoon, a professor of Media Studies at Inha University.

Cho said a revised bill was presented to the National Assembly, which would raise the penalty for sending illegal spam e-mail messages from W10 million to W30 million.