Got any aspirin? Google sure needed some last week. Google disabled an unknown number of Gmail accounts in an over-the-top effort to combat spammers. The problem began on Dec. 5 when email users began reporting on the Gmail Help forum that they couldn't access their accounts. Google acknowledged the problem on Thursday afternoon. The Gmail Guide wrote, "Our team is aware of the problem, and our engineers are continuing to investigate." Several hours later, the company said the problem had been fixed. The company said it happened while they were trying to purge spammers from their system. But there still is a problem. The email system apparently would not accept emails while the accounts were offline. And Gmail will not try to re-deliver those emails. Such is life when you play in the big leagues.

"Our goal has always been to keep Gmail free of people who abuse the service and to keep Gmail inboxes free of spam. We've been targeting a large network of spammers to keep them out of the Gmail system and accidentally disabled access to some other accounts," said Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne.

For more on Google's traffic snarls:
- Check out this Computerworld Article [1]