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Spam: Unwanted Email from Hell

Sep 9, 2008

📄 Contents

␡

What Is Spam?
Why Does Spam Keep Coming?
Specialty Spam
Why Doesn't Someone Stop the Spammers?
How Do Spammers Get My Email Address?
The Damage Spam Can Do
Reduce the Flow-10-minute Tactics to Reduce Spam
Kill More Spam-In an Afternoon
The Absolute Minimum

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Why Does Spam Keep Coming?

Spam makes spammers money. It's hard to believe, but there are people out there who receive spam email, click the offer, and buy the advertised product. Now, you might think, why would anyone do that? Who knows, but they do because the spam keeps coming.

Personally, I think spam is perpetrated by people like that slightly evil kid in chess club. You know, the one who smelled vaguely sour and hiked his shorts too high in gym class. In reality, spammers are just business people—okay, slimy business people—bottom-feeding on yet another Internet opportunity.

CAUTION

Many reputable companies use email for legitimate marketing purposes. If you agree to receive email from an organization (that is to say, you opt-in), the email it sends you is not spam. If you find yourself in this situation, go back to the company's website and find out how to opt-out (unsubscribe). Most reputable companies have a mechanism that allows you to unsubscribe from their emails. Often, you'll find directions for unsubscribing at the bottom of the email in question.

Nevertheless, you don't need much more than Grade 9 math to figure out that if you send a lot of emails, a small percentage of the recipients read the email and an even smaller percentage buy the advertised product. Small as it is, it's income with a scaleable formula. If you can send millions of messages for the price of an Internet connection and a computer, you've got an almost free distribution system. And if it costs almost nothing to send and produces an income of any kind, it's profitable. So the spam keeps coming.

Lovely SPAM, Wonderful SPAAAAAAM!

The origin of the term spam comes from a sketch by the British comedy troupe Monty Python. They did a bit on a restaurant that only featured dishes made with SPAM (note the uppercase), which is a canned ham product from Hormel. When the waitress describes items on the menu, a group of Vikings sing a song that goes something like "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM. Lovely SPAM, lovely SPAM..." So spam was thus named because, like the song, it is an endless repetition of worthless text.

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