The term spam came from an old Monty Python sketch that repeated "spam, spam, spam" over and over, because that's pretty much all the restaurant in the sketch sold. I don't think Hormel's really happy with the term, but what are they gonna do? :-)
In the beginning (of the Internet, not the world,) there wasn't much spam. Mostly university and government agencies grubbing each other for money. That was largely a result of the original Internet not really letting companies do commercial stuff, because the weight of maintaining the net fell on non-profits.
You can tell how long someone's been on the net by mentioning "MAKE.MONEY.FAST!!!" to them. If they're recent additions (last 3 years or so) they'll wonder what you're talking about. If they roll their eyes, they've been around a while. If they develop a sense of rage and turn an ugly shade of purple, they've not only been around for a while, but they were probably an administrator who had to deal with it.
Just for fun, tell them that Dave Rhodes sent you :-)
Dave, you see, was a college student who wrote up one of the first pieces of spam, encouraging people to sign up for his pyramid scheme. Proving that stupid people were on the net even back then, his letter (originally posted to Usenet) got turned into email and file uploads to BBSs, usually with the subject MAKE.MONEY.FAST!!! No telling whether Dave made a nickel off of his scheme, although legend has it that he's in prison for wire fraud, which is likely just wishful thinking.
Things stayed pretty slow, aside from the pyramid scheme that just would never die (a personal aside -- I don't think I've seen a "MAKE.MONEY.FAST!!!" in about five years.)
The modern age of spamming began in 1994 with a Usenet posting by two lawyers (of all people :-) named Cantor and Siegel. Although there were a number of rules associated with posting to Usenet (no off-topic, no cross-posting, etc) the pair pretty much broke them all by posting an advertisement for "Green Card Assistance" to 6,000 newsgroups at once.
Cantor and Siegel not only didn't feel too bad about irritating thousands of newsgroups readers (I too got annoyed upon finding postings all over the place,) but they had the audacity to go out and write a book encouraging others to do the same. I doubt that How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway was a huge best seller, but they certainly helped open the floodgates to where we are today.
What is spam?
Essentially, it's email that you don't want to see. Primarily advertisements, but I get junk from some religious zealot periodically that I could do without. Spam is rampant on the Usenet newsgroups (ie: alt.music.marillion) but unless you read the groups, it's avoidable.
What isn't avoidable is spam that shows up in your inbox. The remainder of this essay will give you tips on how to reduce that.
Opt-in Spam
There is a lot of spam that you get that you asked for. You may not have realized it, but at some point, you've practically begged people to spam you.
When you sign up for sweepstakes, web services, or other Internet things, when you fill in your email address, there's generally a box near it that says "Please fill my inbox with crap that I have no interest in" or words to that effect. The site often helpfully checks the box for you, so if you're not paying attention, you've told them to send you junk mail.
Tip One
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS look for these boxes when giving your email address and make sure that it isn't checked unless it says something like "we'll only send you email that is about this site/service/sweepstakes."
Tip Two
If you find yourself starting to get annoyed by spam from a site you know is legitimate, go back to the web site and change your preferences to not accept email from them. There also may be an "opt out" link within the email, but make sure that they're a reputable company (see next section.)
Opt out email
This is exactly the opposite of the above. You didn't ask them to send you junk, but if you click the helpful link at the bottom of the email, they'll stop sending it to you.
Tip Three
NEVER,NEVER,NEVER do that! It will generate more spam, because you just told the spammer that a) your email address is valid and b) you opened and read their crap.
These are generally "one offs" -- they send you the email and then disappear, because the account they sent from was cancelled for spamming. If you get repeated items, you might want to forward the email to postmaster@DOMAIN.EXT (in other words, if the spam came from a Hotmail.com account, complain to "postmaster@hotmail.com"). In addition, if there's a web site mentioned in the spam, complain to webmaster@DOMAIN.EXT and toss in one to the postmaster as well.
Where did they get my address from?
If it's not an opt-in spam, they bought it (or stole it) in a "bulk mail" list with thousands (millions, sometimes) of others. These are gathered from "bots" that search the World Wide Web and Usenet Newsgroups for email addresses.
Tip Four
If you want to put your email address on your web site or in a post to a newsgroup, disguise it in some way, like "adjensen AT aatrix DOT com" or "adjensen@aatrixNOSPAM.com" Just make sure to include some sort of disclaimer ("Remove NOSPAM to email") for the terminally clueless.
Once your name is in a bulk mail list, there's no way to get it out. Just hope that the list dies quickly.
Okay, I tried to avoid it, but I'm still getting spammed
The other side of the spam battle is controlled by you...filtering. If you don't have an email client that supports filters, go get one (note that if you use AOL, you're out of luck, as they don't let you use your own client. One last tip for AOLers:)
Tip Five
If you use AOL email, about the only thing you can do to avoid spam is to block all incoming mail from people you don't know. That means that new people can't email you unless you give an "optional screen name" that you publicize and weed through periodically. If you find someone in there that you really want to talk to, reply to them and give them your real email address.
What are filters?
If your email client supports them, filters make your life online so much easier. Filters are little rules that your software applies to your email to analyze and sort it. For example, I use Eudora Pro for Macintosh (great software, by the way,) and, among others, I belong to a Yahoo Group called "Freakout." I get between 10-30 emails a day from this group. I set up a filter in Eudora that says "if the email came from freakout@yahoogroups.com, then put it in the folder called 'freakout'." Now, when I check my email, all the stuff from that list is in a separate folder and it all can be read at the same time.
Filters can also parse anything in the header (subject line, to:, etc) and the text of the message, although if you have it parse a lot of text, it will slow down the client when checking email.
The Ultimate Filter
A while back, I realized that most of the spam that made its way into my box had something in common -- it was very rarely addressed to me. Spammers are generally too lazy to send thousands of emails, so what they do is put a thousand names into the BCC field of the email and send it out that way.
Tip Six
In your email software, set a filter that moves anything that doesn't have your email address in the To: or CC: fields into a special "spam" folder. This tip, in itself, will catch about 75% of spam. You will need to make exceptions for things that you do want but don't have your email address (like mailing lists) but that's a simple thing to do. Now, every once in a while, you open the spam folder, do a quick "once over" and delete it all.
Tip Seven
If you find yourself on an opt-in email list that won't stop sending you email not matter what you do, just create a filter that sends anything they send you to the trash. I've got about ten of these set up from companies so clueless that they don't know they lost a customer a long time ago.
Anything else?
There are a couple of other options for you. You can pay for services that will maintain your email account for you and pre-filter out all (or most) of the spam for you. Some states have civil penalties for spam, although collecting is something else entirely. And you can always resort to my sister's approach, which is to have lots of different accounts in an attempt to manage the situation.
As for myself, I'm probably on every spam list there is. I've had my current address for over five years, I've posted to Usenet and Web boards (like Slashdot) with it in plain sight, and I happily list it on my web page. But with the tips that I've listed above, I probably get 2-4 pieces of spam in my inbox per day.
Hope this Helps