Anyone who has an email address needs no introduction to this pesky phenomenon of electronic communication. Spam is unwanted, unsolicited commercial email that is mailed in bulk to thousands, even millions of recipients simultaneously.
Much of the confusion regarding spam comes from a lack of understanding the everyday email user may have regarding the ways and motivations of the spammers.
Whether a given email is spam or not spam can be said to be in the eye of the beholder. There are legitimate email marketers out there, who comply with all applicable laws when they do their bulk emailing. They will, for example, only send their advertising to recipients who have subscribed to their emailing list. In fact, in formal studies have shown that currently, only about half of all spam is deceptive or fraudulent; roughly half of all spam contains genuine marketing messages. Thanks to spammers, all email marketing is tainted with a bad name.
The nature of spam has less to do with its commercial content than with the fact that it is unsolicited and sent out in bulk. There are two categories of spam: unsolicited bulk email and unsolicited commercial email.
Unsolicited bulk email is mass-mailed to recipients who have not given their consent to receive it. This category of spam encompasses jokes, chain letters, virus alerts, etc. unsolicited commercial email targets your wallet. This subset of spam includes get-rich- quick and pyramid schemes, stock offerings for pennystocks, spamming software and fake pharmaceuticals.
