What is spam? Spam is spreading or sending different copies of the same message to many people as a way to coerce them into taking a lot of these unsolicited messages with the expectation that they might be interested in a specific product or service. Spam is mostly used as a means of promoting things for commercial purposes. They are often used for get rich schemes, services that might seem legal but are illegal in nature etc.

Spam has different impacts on users on the Internet. There are several types of spam. They are defined depending on who they are targeting. There is Cancelable Usenet spam that is normally sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. This is normally a single message. Spam that is sent to a newsgroup is often not relevant to most of those within the group. This type of spam is normally directed to those persons that are a part of a newsgroup but don’t necessarily comment or post. They do not have an active role within these groups.

The most common type of spam that everyone knows about or at least receives every day, more than twice a day, is the e-mail spam. Everyone receives spam within their electronic mail box. Email spam lists are normally created by searching the web for addresses, scanning Usenet postings or even stealing this mailing list from the Internet. Spammers use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible as a smart way to grab the addresses of people. Other spam includes instant messaging spam, blog spam, ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, forum spam, social networking spam, television and advertising spam.

What is spam?

Spam is unsolicited mail. This means that they were not subscribed to or asked for. Spam is normally a repetition of a text that people find worthless. The principal reason why spam is called spam is because no one wants it or what is being offered. It is never requested or subscribe to but it is always sent.

One of the simplest and easiest ways to protect you from spam is to employ a spam filtering program. It is a program that detects emails that were not requested and wanted. The spam filter program actually stops or prevents the unsolicited mails from entering into the user’s inbox. These programs can be obtained by using an e-mail client that programs filtering of unsolicited emails. Another way to prevent yourself from becoming a victim to spam email is to resist the urge to put your email anywhere on the web.

How to stop spam emails

Below are additional ways or steps that you can take to stop spam.

1. Some people actually open and respond to spam email. Never do this. It can be very tempting to respond to these messages especially when they were made to appeal to the user. Responding to spam will not help the situation.
2. Delete spam on a regular basis. Try to clear your spam inbox clear at all times.
3. You can create an account for spam or for disposal use. What you can do is to set up another email address apart from your personal email for online purposes. Only give your real email address if you are sure that you are registering with a company that is operating business legally. At times these companies cannot be trusted also since they send your email to spam companies.
4. Never practice to leave your email on post in forums, comments, websites especially social Medias such as Face Book and twitter. If you ever have to leave you email address in cyberspace, do not spell it out. If your email address is rodney235@yahoo.com, ensure that you write it as rodney235 at yahoo dot com. Spammers normally
5. Do not make it a habit to forward emails. Large numbers of emails are collected this way by spammers.

Spam e-mails tend to get people upset because of their e-mail being bombarded with foolishness. Spammers can actually get into trouble for their cyber harassment. There are several laws that regulate how people should interact online. These laws shed light on the prohibition of Internet harassment. If you can trace a spam message back to the spammer, you can contact the authorities. Legal implications can be taken.

Preventing spam messages can be very difficult especially when there are so many different ways to acquire someone’s email. Even though they are difficult to stop, there are measures that can be taken to get these unsolicited messages out of your inbox and into a spam folder. This way you will be able to tell the difference between mails you actually want to read and mails that you don’t want to read.  Spam tends to waste people’s time and clog up their mail box with what you do not want. Also, the bandwidth of a network is at stake since spam eats up a lot of bandwidth.

Anyone can become a spammer. Even you can. Spam messages are so easy to create. Let’s say you have an idea. It could be a situation where you have a new cake recipe and you want to make some money by selling this recipe to different people. To market this recipe you create 100 spam messages and send to different people. Because they didn’t request or want your mail, you are in effect sending spam messages.