Curiously enough, the word spam is a negative reference to that
pink, hulk of meat that comes in a can that, most people say,
has no nutritional value whatsoever.
In more common internet terms, spam is one or more messages sent
repeatedly and massively to countless e-mail address, often
resulting in flooded and crowded mailboxes all over the world.
What started out as another insistent branch of internet
advertising has now evolved into something that the U.S.
government is gravely concerned about.
Even without knowing the word "spam," you are most probably
aware of an annoying circumstance when you opened your mailbox
to find countless of worthless messages, often linking you to
equally vague and suspicious websites and offers.
Internet experts have declared that spam costs money for both
consumers and internet providers. Why? Simply because the
consumers have to waste time in opening e-mail that is not
relevant to their lives, and therefore throw away precious
minutes that they have paid for through their for providers.
This may not seem to be of such great magnitude if we're just
talking about spam that took 10 seconds to open, but think about
something like 5,000 people all over the country each opening 10
spammed e-mails and you've got an alarming number, and this is
already thinking very conservatively and small-scale.
As for the providers, they are the ones who get a barrage of
complaints whenever their clients get flooded with spam.
The cost of providing free minutes to placate these customers,
plus dispatching staff to work round the clock, plus the added
stress of assuring their clients that they are not in league
with the spammers, all make up a very difficult and costly
business.
Concerned U.S. officials have been fighting spam for almost a
decde now. And while there are now several software that can
detect and filter spam, hackers have also become better at
grabbing mailing lists and developing their own software to
bypass all these filters.
Suddenly, you can't just tell if an e-mail is spam by simply
looking at the subject line where garbled characters often
appear. You'll find that not only will they address you with
your first name, you'll also see that the sender has a name that
seems vaguely familiar to you.
It seems that spam is everywhere. You can't join mailing lists,
internet newletter subscriptions, or even go into online gaming
without expecting to get spammed along the way.
People nowadays are cautioned to be careful whenever they are
prompted for their e-mail addresses.
It would also not do to trust a spam's content. Oftentimes,
these e-mails contain invitations to vague and shady businesses
such as pornography, multi-level marketing companies, miracle
cures, and obscure products, products that are so totally
worthless that it's proprietors would certainly not invest in
good money to have them advertised the normal way.
In truth, using spam as an advertising tool costs less on the
advertisers, and more, much more, on the consumers.
What To Do About Spam
Most spammed e-mails give you the option to be removed from
their mailing lists -all you have to do is click "remove" or
"unsubscribe." Experts, however, warn that this is just
misleading information.
The truth is, all you would actually get out of doing this is
validating your e-mail address as a working one, therefore
giving these hackers more reason to include you in more mailing
lists to eventually sell to more and more clients who will
surely send you more spam.
Even as the concerned officials battle it out with hackers and
spammers, there are also ways that you can participate, even
indirectly:
1. Make sure that you wade through your e-mail to actually find
out if an innocent message got lost in the sea of spam
2. Notify anti-spam groups of new tactics that you observe,
either firsthand or through your close friends and family
3. Don't fight spam with spam. If you are angry at having been
spammed, don't threaten the spammers or worse, send them your
own spam. This would be really wrong, not to mention ironic
4. Be patient with your provider. Chances are, they are doing
the best they can to fight spam.
5. Don't hit that "remove" or "unsubscribe" button. You now know
that it doesn't work. Tell other people about it.
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