The term "spam" originated from a Monty Python sketch about a menu filled with spam. It came to refer to unwanted messages that are obtrusive and suppress other important messages. The first spam emails were sent in 1993 to promote the services of a law firm. Today, spam most commonly advertises adult content, health products, IT, personal finance, and education.

1. Camila Wolfzun
What is spam?
If you use email, you will have encountered spam. However, do you
know where the term comes from, and why is it used to refer to
unwanted email?
‘Spam’ is an acronym derived from the words ‘spiced’ and ‘ham’.
In 1937, the Hormel Foods Corporation (USA) started selling
minced sausage made from out-
of-date meat. The Americans
refused to buy this unappetizing
product. To avoid financial
losses the owner of the
company, Mr. Hormel, launched
a massive advertising campaign,
which resulted in a contract to
provide tinned meat products to
the Army and Navy.
In 1937, Hormel Foods began to
supply its products to American and allied troops. After World War
2, with Britain in the grips of an economic crisis, spam was one of
the few meat products that was not rationed and hence was widely
available. George Orwell, in his book ‘1984’, described spam as
‘pink meat pieces’, which gave a new meaning to the word ‘spam’ -
something disgusting but inevitable.
In December 1970 the BBC television comedy series Monty
Python’s Flying Circus showed a sketch set in a cafe where nearly
every item on the menu included spam - the tinned meat product.
As the waiter recited the SPAM-filled menu, a chorus of Viking
patrons drowned out all other conversation with a song repeating
"SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM... lovely SPAM, wonderful
SPAM", hence "Spamming" the dialogue. Since then spam has been
associated with unwanted, obtrusive, excessive information, which
suppresses required messages.
In 1993, the term ‘spam’ was first introduced with reference to
unsolicited or undesired bulk electronic messages. Richard Dephew,
administrator of the world-wide distributed Internet discussion
system Usenet, wrote a program which mistakenly caused the
release of dozens of recursive messages onto the news.admin.policy
newsgroup. The recipients immediately found an appropriate name
for these obtrusive messages – spam.
On April 12 1994, a husband-and-wife firm of lawyers, Canter &
Siegel, posted the first massive spam mailing. The company’s
programmer employed Usenet to advertise the services offered by
Canter & Siegel, thus giving a start to commercial spam.
Today the word ‘spam’ is widely used in email terminology, though
Hormel tinned meat products are still on sale in the USA.
Types of spam
Spam comes in many different varieties, ranging from advertising
of legitimate goods and services to political propaganda to Internet
frauds. Spam worldwide tends to advertise a certain range of goods
and services irrespective of language and geography.
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2. Spammers constantly extend the range of their offers and are
always searching for new ways of attracting unwary users. The list
of spam categories is growing. However, when averaged out over
the course of the year, 50% of spam falls into the following
categories:
1. Adult content 4. Personal
2. Health finance
3. IT 5. Education and
training
How to reduce spam
Spam is not only a nuisance, but can pose a threat to your computer
or your data. For simple, practical guidelines on how you can
reduce the amount of spam, you receive, read here.
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