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.
McAfee Corp., formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company headquartered in San Jose, California.
Laurence A. Canter and Martha S. Siegel were partners in a husband-and-wife firm of lawyers who posted the first massive commercial Usenet spam on April 12, 1994.
On Usenet, the Usenet Death Penalty (UDP) is a final penalty that may be issued against Internet service providers or single users who produce too much spam or fail to adhere to Usenet standards. It is named after the death penalty, as it causes the banned user or provider to be unable to use Usenet, essentially "killing" their service. Messages that fall under the jurisdiction of a Usenet Death Penalty will be cancelled. Cancelled messages are deleted from Usenet servers and not allowed to propagate. This causes users on the affected ISP to be unable to post to Usenet, and it puts pressure on the ISP to change their policies. Notable cases include actions taken against UUNET, CompuServe, Excite@Home, and Google Groups.
Vonage is an American cloud communications provider operating as a subsidiary of Ericsson. Headquartered in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, the organization was founded in 1998 as Min-X as a provider of residential telecommunications services based on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). In 2001, the organization changed its name to Vonage.
Openwave is a division of Enea. It provides video traffic management and 5G mobile products.
Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. is an American telecommunications company. Known as Citizens Utilities Company until 2000, Citizens Communications Company until 2008, and Frontier Communications Corporation until 2020, as a communications provider with a fiber-optic network and cloud-based services, Frontier offers broadband internet, digital television, and computer technical support to residential and business customers in 25 states. In some areas it also offers home phone services.
Giganews, Inc is a Usenet/newsgroup service provider. Founded in 1994, Giganews service is available to individual users through a subscription model and as an outsourced service to internet service providers. Well-known ISPs that have outsourced Usenet access to Giganews include RCN Corporation, BT, WOW!, and Kingston Communications.
Freei Networks, Inc. was a free internet service provider from 1998-2000. In 2000, FreeInternet.com was acquired by United Online, Inc.. In 2008, United Online re-launched FreeInternet.com as a Web site dedicated to free and discounted retail offers.
Brightmail Inc. was a San Francisco–based technology company focused on anti-spam filtering. Brightmail's system has a three-pronged approach to stopping spam, the Probe Network is a massive number of e-mail addresses established for the sole purpose of receiving spam. The Brightmail Logistics and Operations Center (BLOC) evaluates newly detected spam and issues rules for ISPs. The third approach is the Spam Wall, a filtering engine that identifies and screens out spam based on the updates from the BLOC.
Interactive Intelligence was a telecommunications software and cloud computing development company that provided unified business communications solutions for call centers, Voice over IP companies, and business process automation.
Usenet, USENET, or, "in full", User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980. Users read and post messages to one or more topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.
Myriad Group AG, headquartered in Switzerland, is a software company specializing in the mobile communications sector. The company provides a range of applications tailored for consumer use, as well as solutions related to social media, messaging, and embedded software. These offerings are targeted towards Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), mobile operators, and pay TV providers. Myriad organizes its operations into three distinct product divisions: Versy, Myriad Connect, and Device Solutions.
RingCentral, Inc. is an American provider of cloud-based communication and collaboration products and services.
Leaf Group, formerly Demand Media Inc., is an American content company that operates online brands, including eHow, livestrong.com, and marketplace brands Saatchi Art and Society6. The company provides social media platforms for large company websites and distributes content with social media tools to web outlets. It is commonly known for being a content farm. Demand Media was created in 2006 by a former private equity investor, Shawn Colo, and the former chairman of MySpace, Richard Rosenblatt.
EarthLink is an American Internet service provider.
Atlassian Corporation is an Australian-American software company that develops products for software developers, and project managers among other groups. The company is domiciled in Delaware, with global headquarters in Sydney, Australia, and US headquarters in San Francisco.
Supernews is a Usenet service provider founded in 1995. It is currently owned by Giganews and currently share the same backbone. Offering consumers and Internet service providers direct access to Usenet, Supernews is one of the oldest Usenet providers today.
Endurance International Group (EIG), previously named BizLand, was an IT services company specializing in web hosting. The company was founded in 1997 and headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA. In 2021 Endurance International Group merged with Web.com forming a new company, Newfold Digital. It is one of the Internet's largest webhosting providers, the company was structured differently from other large hosting companies such as Rackspace, GoDaddy, or 1&1 Ionos. The company has grown its hosting and related business through numerous acquisitions.
Synacor Inc. is a technology and services company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. It provides email and collaboration tools through Zimbra, and TV Everywhere authentication and identity management services through Cloud ID. In addition to Buffalo, the company has offices in London, Pune, Singapore, and Tokyo.
