What is spam?
A. Spam is unsolicited e-mail sent you to by someone you don’t know. Normally it contains a marketing message that is trying to get you to buy a product or service. 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, which as you may know 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, spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam…” Maybe spam comes from the idea that its a continuous stream of annoying nonsense. The spam skit is available on this DVD.
Spam is junk email, usually offering bogus products and invitations to pornography sites. Sometimes, spam email is used to spread viruses. You may also receive phishing emails. These are emails that look like they have been sent by a legitimate organisation and attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details.
. It has since been adopted by the Internet community to signify the mindless mass-posting of messages to Usenet or email, flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message. Spam is unwanted, invasive Internet advertising. Spam comes to you in two ways: either through Usenet’s newsgroups, or via Email. Spam is invasive, in that you haven’t asked for it and it gets sent to you (or posted to your newsgroup) anyway. Most spam is commercial advertising, typically for get-rich-quick schemes, or probable scams. Spam costs the sender very little to send — most of the costs are borne by the recipient or the carriers. Spam consumes your resources. Many spam emails try to look like an honest attempt to do something nice for you. Dear friend, I noticed you are doing business on the net and I thought you’d be interested in…
