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What is spam?

Spam (from the English spam) – mailing advertising correspondence to persons who did not express a desire to receive it. Spammers are called spammers.

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History of the origin of the term “spam”

Almost everyone has a junk folder in their mailbox, where letters are manually and automatically added. It’s no secret that we receive a lot of messages with offers of an advertising nature. Some letters relate to our activities and interests, while others generally make me wonder – what do I have to do with it? But they are related by the fact that we did not ask anyone to send us such offers. One has only to unsubscribe from one sender or block it, as others appear instead. The fight against spam seems to be an unpleasant but inevitable part of the Internet. Do not underestimate the role of spam in the modern world – it accounts for 60 to 80% of all emails. The distribution channel is not limited only to e-mails, it is also messengers, social networks, blogs, SMS …

The acronym SPAM or SPAM was not originally associated with information technology. The SPAM brand appeared in 1936, and canned meat was produced under it (Shoulder of Pork and hAM – “pork shoulder and ham,” according to other sources, SPiced hAM– “ham with spices”).

A short sonorous word was heard, which contributed to the stormy advertising, and even the Second World War. These canned goods were supplied to the American army, and in the post-war hungry years they became a good substitute for meat in Britain. The Monty Python sketch is connected with this, during which the participants in the scene repeatedly repeat the obsessive word SPAM. The visitor requested a dish without SPAM, the waitress began to offer him the available dishes, but they all contained a little SPAM. Chaos was developed by a group of singing Vikings, fans of meat dishes.

A similar use of the word was remembered, and with the development of the Internet, it acquired a new meaning. In the first computer networks, there were ads. But she, of course, interfered with the communication of enthusiasts. They began to call extraneous obsessive messages “spam,” similar to the Monty Python scene. Soon the word became a household word. And if the producer of canned food, Hormel Foods, even popularized the memorable sketch, then the new interpretation of the product name did not please her. But attempts to defend the right to the word failed!

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The most common types of spam

Today, there are several common types of spam at once – advertisers are constantly thinking of how to convey their proposals to us. Spam can be used as advertising by completely legal companies that are trying to make a name for themselves in such a cheap way of “carpet bombing”. True, sometimes such obsession only scares customers away. Spam can be used to advertise illegal products, which cannot be reported through legal channels. Anti-advertising, defaming competitors, can also be a form of spam. Sometimes scammers try to lure people into money by sending out numerous letters of the same type. A classic example is the “Nigerian letters” in the form of a message about an unexpected inheritance. Another spam based scam is phishing. The letter indicates a link to a fake address of a trusted resource, the transition there is fraught with the loss of personal data. Numerous “letters of happiness” and the sending of virus letters, political or election propaganda, requests for allocation of money for the treatment of children are considered as spam.

Analysts consider spam to be a low-performing advertising tool. But substantial fines do not stop the organizers from such newsletters. In the meantime, users have to learn to get used to life in a new world where there is so much information that sometimes you need to protect yourself from it.

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