I've heard of a few people now but is it right that PlayStation are going to charge to use the psn network next year?
No. As usual, there's alot of FUD floating around. PSN access, in and of itself, is slated to remain free, including online play. What's being floated by Sony is the idea of adding premium subscription-based content to PSN. Everything that's free now will still be free when the optional premium content is added.
The SPAM is already flying...people sending around messages about how PSN will be a pay service, but if you forward this message to 20 friends, then it will be free for you. I've been banning any friends that send this crap my way...people that dumb are not fun to play with anyway.
I don't think people are purposely sending them. At least not some. I got one from a buddy who says he never sent anything. I also got one from a random "buddy" who, followed up by sending me an apology, insisting that he didn't send it. He saw the outbox message and didn't want me to think he was spamming.
No, it does not...though I am suspecting that the messaging system is not very well protected from attacks via PC...much like there is no known way to hack and take over a predator drone, but it is super-easy to intercept a video feed or even send a fake feed. I almost wish the PS3 had malware...that would mean that it was possible to run user created content (homebrew) with the system.