Web2Go

Spam getting you down? Let Web2Go help.

On 3 May 1978, 393 people received a message that would change the face of computing forever.

It was the fateful day 30 years ago when the first piece of unsolicited commercial advertising was sent over a computer network. It was the beginning of the phenomenon we now lovingly know as spamming.

Spammers choke up the Internet with thousands of copies of the same message, aiming to force the message on users who would not otherwise choose to receive it. The majority of spam is commercial advertising, a lot of it promoting dodgy products like cheap medications or get rich-quick-schemes.

(Check out this New Scientist blog post for a detailed history of spam. )

These days, up to 90% of the estimated 120 billion email messages that are sent daily could be classified as spam. Those 393 pioneering spam victims, who were very cheesed off about receiving one unexpected surprise in their Inboxes, would be truly mind-boggled by the scale of the spam industry today.

Anti-spam website SpamUnit says it’s hard to estimate just how much spammers are earning each year but cites just one spammer who claims to be making USD$700, 000 per annum from his enterprise.

Spammers gather email addresses and send spam messages to those addresses using a number of techniques. (This article from Wikipedia will give you all the gory details.)

So, in the face of this ever-growing mountain of cyber-skullduggery, what can you do about spam?

My first rule of spam is: