If you use e-mail at all, chances are you receive spam messages from time to time, probably more often than you realize. Most e-mail providers filter spam and send it to a “junk mail” folder where it is never seen or accessed. Many e-mail boxes receive hundreds of spam messages each day. Spamming is the process of sending bulk electronic messages to multiple e-mail addresses in hopes that a small percentage of recipients will read the message.

Spam is not limited to e-mail, although that is what it is most often associated with, but rather is used through various electronic mediums. Spam has not always been a part of the Internet, but it’s interesting to take a look at spam’s beginnings.

The popular belief is that this junk e-mail was called “spam” because of a Monty Python sketch produced in 1970, long before electronic spam was in existence. The sketch portrayed a cafe where everything on the menu was some variation of Spam, the canned meat. In the background, patrons sing a loud song about Spam, drowning out the restaurant staff’s attempt to speak to customers, thus “Spamming” the conversation. Unsolicited, junk e-mail became known as spam because it made it difficult to filter through and retrieve the messages that were solicited and welcomed by the recipient.

In 1998, the dictionary added the following definition to the word spam: “Irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of newsgroups or users.” Before spam was being sent to e-mail boxes however, it was being used in other ways on the Internet. The first known unsolicited electronic message sent for commercial purposes was in 1978. Throughout the 1980’s, before e-mail was so popular and widespread, spammers annoyed users of message boards and chat rooms by flooding the conversations with commercial messages. The flooding of message boards and chat rooms was called “flooding” or “trashing” before it became known as “spamming.”

Unsolicited electronic messages are not unique to the Internet. In the 19th century, unsolicited junk telegrams were sent regularly. Today, spam can be in the form of unsolicited instant messages, junk text messages sent to multiple wireless phones, or even pre-recorded messages left on voice mail systems.

When unsolicited junk e-mail became known as spam, the maker of the canned meat, Hormel, brought legal action to prevent these unwanted messages being called Spam. Eventually, Hormel came around, insisting only that when publishers are referring to the canned meat as opposed to the junk mail, they use all capital letters.

Today, there are over 12.4 million spam e-mails sent every day. It is estimated that over 40% of all the e-mail sent over the Internet is spam. The average person receives 2200 spam messages every year. Although spam is a tremendous waste of space and time, it continues to be used because it works. Over 8% of Internet users have bought a product directly because of a spam message. Avoiding spam is nearly impossible, but e-mail providers today are doing an increasingly better job of keeping it separate from legitimate electronic messages.

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