(noun)

Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

[From Spam (probably inspired by a comedy routine on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the word is repeated incessantly.

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So, in a nutshell, if your receive an email from someone you do not know that is selling something. - It is spam.

Here is a link that might be useful: Spam Definition

What is spam?
Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at "lurkers", people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.

and then there is this type

Sometimes there are also "spam posts" on message boards like this one. Someone will pretend to be responding but post a link to something they have a commercial interest in.

Thanks for explaining.

Oh....I do love the canned meat spam!

Deb

"Oh....I do love the canned meat spam! "

You must be from Hawaii!

Spam sushi is a delight....especially while on a warm, humid golf course. But it tastes better followed by a cold beer or two.

LOL Sushipup, no not from Hawaii.

I am a native of Panama City Florida! Actually, I AM Native American...a blend of Cherokee and Black Foot Indian.

Deb :o)))

P.S. (I also love "head cheese"...hahahaha!!)

Now, if I were to insert a link here, xxx, directing DebN to my site were I sold the most wonderful "Head Cheese / Souse Meat" in the world, and where I would guarantee her a marvelous income for life if she would just forward the link to all her friends and family, that could be considered SPAM, too.

Oh I get it now! Caroline that makes perfect sense!

I hate to get caught up in those links where when you click on them they won't let you click out of them. I would guess that was spam too.

Deb

I was told by a tech at our cable company to make a unique address to prevent spam harvesters from picking up your email addys. A unique address that doesn't make any sense to anyone but you, something like r19308cj@yahoo.com. Use part of an old house number mixed with something easy for you to remember. Harvesters can put names together, but not random numbers and letters. He said he had no spam at all and I don't either.

A "unique" email name will not prevent spam. Most spammers use a dictionary attack program. The generator starts with aaaaaaa then going on to aaaaaab then on to aaaaaac and so forth, until you get to ones like r19308cj in the chain.

Email addresses are also harvested by hacking into website's member profiles.

If you have not gotten any spam it is probably only just a matter of time................

We were shopping this weekend and a fellow walked by us with a small cast iron frying pan, a 6 pack of water and he reached in front of us to grab a couple os single serving foil packs of spam! I guess he was going camping! LOL!!

If I do go to the store later (with or without my bandana), I'm thinking I'm gonna have to get some Spam now..this has got me craving it. :)

Lynn, a single serving foil pack of Spam? Do things get any easier for pete's sake? haha

I love to slice the spam into not to thick slabs and fry them up. I then scramble some eggs in the pan I fried the spam in. I take plain ole light bread...preferably Sunbeam Giant loaf and make spam and egg sandwiches.
I just love those for a quick supper or for breakfast.

Deb

Spam, eggs, sausage and Spam, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, lovely Spam, lovely Spam... lovely Spam, lovely Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam.....

Can't get the song out of my mind.

Actually Caroline, "SPAM" refers to the canned product. Both "Spam" and "SPAM" are registered trademarks of Hormel and should refer to the canned item while "spam" is the unsolicited commercial email, though when used to start a sentence, it would be appropriate to capitalize it. Just FYI.

Occasionally that greasy canned stuff is ok, fried and served with eggs, potatoes and toast. I don't really care for canned meats of any kind and don't care for any unsolicited commercial email of any kind!

Just because email is unsolicited does not make it spam. If I send you, well, let's put it this way, if YOU send ME an email and say "hi" or ask a question, that's unsolicited but not spam. The ones that are commercially motivated, i.e. trying to make money, via semi-legitimate or scam methods is the key to truly calling it "spam".

There's many ways to recognize the UCE spam. As mentioned, but when they put your name, and several others in various forms, for instance, yourname@yourisp, yorname@yourisp, yourname@yoisp... you know it's a spammer. If it shows your address as the sender? It's spam.

I always tell people for instance if they're contacting me through GW, to put in the subject something like "it's (sender) from GW" and I always do that too. Then the recipient can choose to open it or not.

Let's face it, spam works. People buy the stuff. People send the personal info they ask for. People are STOOPID! And because of this we all suffer. And the forward button should be removed from all browsers. People forward garbage and that is conspiring with spammers and makes you a spammer when you do it. People are too lazy to check to see if it's true, they'll just send it to their address book just in case or because it coincides with their political or religious belief and it doesn't matter if it's a lie.