In a way, you are already familiar with spam – after all, you get some every day.
Spam is a form of an electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail containing an advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.
In addition to wasting people’s time with unwanted e-mail, spam also uses up a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. But because the Internet is public, there is really little that can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, some online services have instituted policies to prevent spammers from spamming their subscribers.
There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, “Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…” Like the song, spam is an unwanted, endless repetition of worthless text.
Another school of thought maintains that “spam” term came from the computer group at the University of Southern California lab who gave it the name because it has many of the same traits as the lunch meat Spam:
- nobody wants
- nobodyever asks for it
- no one ever eats it
- it is the first item to be pushed to the side
Jokes aside…
What does Spam mean to you?
I feel there are no comments necessary. So if you like spam, let me know – why?