Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose, or simply repeatedly sending the same message to the same user. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social spam, spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in almost every dish in which Vikings annoyingly sing "Spam" repeatedly.
news.admin.net-abuse.email is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to discussion of the abuse of email systems, specifically through email spam and similar attacks. According to a timeline compiled by Keith Lynch, news.admin.net-abuse.email was the first widely available electronic forum for discussing spam.
Various anti-spam techniques are used to prevent email spam.
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 is a law passed in 2003 establishing the United States' first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail. The law requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. Introduced by Republican Conrad Burns, the act passed both the House and Senate during the 108th United States Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2003 and was enacted on January 1, 2004.
Mobile phone spam is a form of spam, directed at the text messaging or other communications services of mobile phones or smartphones. As the popularity of mobile phones surged in the early 2000s, frequent users of text messaging began to see an increase in the number of unsolicited commercial advertisements being sent to their telephones through text messaging. This can be particularly annoying for the recipient because, unlike in email, some recipients may be charged a fee for every message received, including spam. Mobile phone spam is generally less pervasive than email spam, where in 2010 around 90% of email is spam. The amount of mobile spam varies widely from region to region. In North America, mobile spam steadily increased after 2008 and accounted for half of all mobile phone traffic by 2019. In parts of Asia up to 30% of messages were spam in 2012.
Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s, and by 2014 was estimated to account for around 90% of total email traffic.
A Joe job is a spamming technique that sends out unsolicited e-mails using spoofed sender data. Early Joe jobs aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the apparent sender or inducing the recipients to take action against them, but they are now typically used by commercial spammers to conceal the true origin of their messages and to trick recipients into opening emails apparently coming from a trusted source.
John R. Levine is an Internet author and consultant specializing in email infrastructure, spam filtering, and software patents.
Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Email marketing strategies commonly seek to achieve one or more of three primary objectives: build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.
Email harvesting or scraping is the process of obtaining lists of email addresses using various methods. Typically these are then used for bulk email or spam.
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is an international radical feminist non-governmental organization opposing human trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of commercial sex. It has been described as a "neo-abolitionist lobby group" that represents a "carceral feminist anti-trafficking practice," and has been criticized for essentializing women and promoting a controversial and "ideologically charged" definition of trafficking. It is strongly opposed to the perspectives of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women and the sex workers rights movement. It has been linked to anti-trans groups and its Latin American regional branch is a signatory of the manifesto of Women's Declaration International.
Chris Lewis is a Canadian security consultant from Ottawa, who fought spam on Usenet and the early Internet. Active in volunteer anti-spam efforts in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lewis was described in Net.wars (1997) as "the best known active canceler of spam and other mass postings" at the time. In April 1998, he organized an unsuccessful moratorium with forty other anti-spam volunteers in an attempt to boycott internet service providers into doing their share against spam. He worked as a systems architect for Nortel and, as of 2017, is Chief Scientist at SpamhausTechnology.
Ray Everett, formerly known as Ray Everett-Church, is an American attorney, entrepreneur and author. He was dubbed "the dean of corporate Chief Privacy Officers" by Interactive Week Magazine, first creating that title and position in 1999 at Internet advertising company AllAdvantage. In 1997, he was profiled by The New York Times as an influential advocate of responsible online advertising. In 2013 and 2014 Business Insider designated him among the “Most Important LGBT People in Tech.”
Outblaze is a technology company that develops and provides digital media products and services including smartphone games and other apps, social media applications, computer and video games, online transaction systems, and web communication software. Although it started out as an application service provider of hosted Web applications, the company gradually transitioned to the video game industry. In 2009 Outblaze sold its messaging business unit in order to focus primarily on digital entertainment.
The following table represents laws in respective countries or jurisdictions which restrict the use of Email spam.
The history of email spam reaches back to the mid-1990s when commercial use of the internet first became possible - and marketers and publicists began to test what was possible.
The Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, is Canada's anti-spam legislation that received Royal Assent on December 15, 2010. The Act replaced Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), which was passed by the House of Commons, but died due to the prorogation of the second session of the 40th Canadian Parliament on December 30, 2009. The Act went into effect July 1, 2014.
CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc. was a ruling by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in 1997 that set an early precedent for granting online service providers the right to prevent commercial enterprises from sending unsolicited email advertising – also known as spam – to its subscribers. It was one of the first cases to apply United States tort law to restrict spamming on computer networks. The court held that Cyber Promotions' intentional use of CompuServe's proprietary servers to send unsolicited email was an actionable trespass to chattels and granted a preliminary injunction preventing the spammer from sending unsolicited advertisements to any email address maintained by CompuServe.
Omega World Travel, Inc. v. Mummagraphics, Inc., 469 F.3d 348, is a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in which Mummagraphics, Inc. is sued by Omega World Travel, Inc. (Omega) and Cruise.com after Mummagraphic alleged that they received 11 commercial e-mail messages in violation of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 as well as Oklahoma state law. In the initial filing, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia had awarded summary judgment to Omega on all of Mummagraphics' claims finding that the commercial emails from Omega did not violate the CAN-SPAM Act, and that the CAN-SPAM Act preempted Oklahoma state law. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
A cold email is an unsolicited e-mail that is sent to a receiver without prior contact. It could also be defined as the email equivalent of cold calling. Cold emailing is a subset of email marketing and differs from transactional and warm emailing.
