About Spam & Email Spammers

What is Spam?

Spam is the popular term for unsolicited email. Be it an ad for a used PC, or an urge to vote on a proposition; if you didn't ask for it, didn't sign up on a mailing list related to it, and didn't leave your e-mail address on a web form asking for more information on it, it's spam! The word has its origins in a hilarious Monty Python's Flying Circus skit about the canned luncheon meat product manufactured by Hormel. The Internet Jargon File, also published by The MIT Press as The New Hacker's Dictionary, gives one definition as: "To mass-mail unrequested identical or nearly-identical email messages, particularly those containing advertising. Especially used when the mail addresses have been culled from network traffic or databases without the consent of the recipients." More formal synonyms include: UCE, Unsolicited Commercial Email or UBE, Unsolicited Bulk Email.

How did spammers get my email address?

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how people who send unsolicited email collect addresses because there are so many techniques. Popular methods include: Culling addresses from chat rooms, from Usenet postings, insecure email lists, and "mailto" links on Web pages. Many companies and individuals who spam use "Web crawlers," or automated programs that look through various kinds of Web traffic to harvest email addresses. Unfortunately, if your email address is listed publicly on a Web page, it is very easy for the spammers to get it.

Spammers also get addresses by mailing to common names or common words used in email addresses for example "smith@company.co.nz" or "accounting@somecompany.com." They may also keep databases by known domain names constantly probing that domain for real email addresses. There are known viruses that will send email to all the addresses in your mailing programs address book.

What can I do to respond to spam? Is it a good idea to "unsubscribe" or "reply to remove"?

In the case of bulk or unsolicited commercial email it may be a bad idea to respond to the email at all. Asking to be removed from a list lets the spammer know your email address is a legitimate one and may, in fact, add you to a database.

It is not advisable to even open an offending email. Spammers can set up their email to notify them that a particular email was opened by its addressee. This way a spammer knows that your email address is legitimate and that the subject heading made you curious enough to look.

The best solution for combating spam still remains: Delete the mail immediately!

What about lists to which I might have added myself?

Most legitimate commercial email will include instructions on how to unsubscribe from a list. This is almost always done in the case where you asked to be on an email list. This email is technically solicited by you and isn't really considered spam. Did you forget that you filled out a Web form on a company's Website? Many people do. Or they forget to uncheck the boxes that automatically subscribe them to receive information from a site.

Be very cautious when you agree to "opt-in" to a list. You may be giving a site the right to sell or trade your email address to another company. Always check a site's use and privacy policies.

But this spam appears to come from a ‘trusted’ company?

Again, be aware that the email from address may be forged. Sometimes forgeries may even make the email appear to have come from your email address.

Occasionally, a well-meaning but misguided individual will use an email address or list to promote something. It is usually easy to respond to this kind of fly-by-night spam. Ask yourself if this is really spam; perhaps the person sending the email simply used an email list for other than its intended purpose. How seriously "off-topic" is the email? A polite response directly to the offender might be appropriate.