SPAM in a nutshell

SPAM, also known as "junk mail" or "spam", is the sending of unsolicited advertising messages by e-mail. In other words, it's the electronic version of the tons of flyers that fill your mailbox, but with far less pollution for our beloved planet.

• The first SPAM message was sent on May 3, 1978, by Gary Thuerk, a salesman for Digital Equipment Corporation, who sent out an invitation to a demonstration of his company's products. His message was aimed at all ARPAnet (forerunner of the Internet) users living on the West Coast of the United States, i.e. almost 600 people. Reactions were strong and mixed, and the U.S. government, in charge of the network, condemned the practice out of hand, judging it to be not only non-compliant with the terms of use of the network, but also prohibitively expensive, as the bandwidth consumed, compared with the...