On November 19th, we reported that Bill Gates gets 4 million spams a day at his Microsoft e-mail account. That information came to us from none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, but it appears he misspoke. In a column for the Detroit Free Press about Microsoftis latest efforts to listen to customers, Mr. Wenland offers an aside about Mr. Ballmer telling him that really, itis only 4 million spams per year for his boss. From the column:

At the top is everyoneis list is spam. Thatis true even for Gates, who Ballmer says gets about 4 million pieces of e-mail -- most of it junk -- every year. (Ballmer said he misspoke a few days back when he was quoted as saying Gates gets 4 million e-mails a day.) Ballmer says only about 10 junk e-mails make it into his e-mail inbox each day because of anti-spam technology the company has developed.

That works out to a little less than 10,959 spams per day, a far cry from 4 million, but still an awful lot. You can read the full article at the Detroit Free Pressis Web site.