Email may grow out of practical control within three years, research from IDC has warned.

The analyst organisation predicts that more than 60 billion emails will be sent every day by 2006. The report, Worldwide Email Usage Forecast, 2002-2006: Know What's Coming Your Way, puts the current daily email count at 31 billion.

The report's author, Mark Levitt - vice president of IDC's Collaborative Computing program - said: "Like water flowing out of a hose, email has the potential to fill our inboxes and workdays, overwhelming our abilities to navigate through the growing currents of content."

He said that firms need to do more to address the continued upsurge, particularly in the volume of spam.

Levitt said that technology to streamlines customers' access to important and time-sensitive email was urgently needed.

Only a more effective means of filtering out spam would "ensure that email continues to be a valuable business and personal communications tool," he said.

"If spam was more actively discouraged there would be more room on the net for legitimate users."