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History of email spam
The history of email spam reaches back to the mid-1990s, when commercial use of the internet first became possible—and marketers and publicists began to test what was possible.
Very soon, email spam was ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. This article details significant events in the history of spam, and the efforts made to limit it.
Commercialization of the internet and integration of electronic mail as an accessible means of communication has another face—the influx of unwanted information and mails. As the internet started to gain popularity in the early 1990s, it was quickly recognized as an excellent advertising tool. At practically no cost, a person can use the internet to send an email message to thousands of people. These unsolicited "junk" electronic mails came to be called "spam". The history of spam is intertwined with the history of electronic mail.
While the linguistic significance of the usage of the word 'spam' is attributed to the British comedy troupe Monty Python in a now legendary sketch from their Flying Circus TV series, in which a group of Vikings sing a chorus of "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM..." at increasing volumes, the historic significance lies in it being adopted to refer to unsolicited commercial electronic mail sent to a large number of addresses, in what was seen as drowning out normal communication on the internet.
The first ARPANET spam was sent in 1971 by an MIT system administrator of CTSS “to all people on CTSS”.
In November 1975, Jon Postel wrote RFC 706, "On the junk mail problem," suggesting that the problem of junk electronic mail had been at least contemplated, if not experienced.
The first commercial spam electronic mail (although not yet called email), was sent on May 3, 1978, to around 400 users on the ARPANET. It was an advertisement for a presentation by Digital Equipment Corporation for their DECSYSTEM-20 products written by Gary Thuerk, a marketer of theirs, and Carl Gartley, an engineer who sent the message through Thuerk's account. It reportedly generated $13 million in sales. The reaction to it was almost universally negative—an ARPANET representative got Thuerk to promise not to do it again—and for a long time there were no further instances.
The name "spam" was actually first applied, in April 1993, not to an email, but to unwanted postings on Usenet newsgroup network. Richard Depew accidentally posted 200 messages to news.admin.policy and in the aftermath readers of this group were making jokes about the accident, when one person referred to the messages as "spam", coining the term that would later be applied to similar incidents over email.
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History of email spam
The history of email spam reaches back to the mid-1990s, when commercial use of the internet first became possible—and marketers and publicists began to test what was possible.
Very soon, email spam was ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. This article details significant events in the history of spam, and the efforts made to limit it.
Commercialization of the internet and integration of electronic mail as an accessible means of communication has another face—the influx of unwanted information and mails. As the internet started to gain popularity in the early 1990s, it was quickly recognized as an excellent advertising tool. At practically no cost, a person can use the internet to send an email message to thousands of people. These unsolicited "junk" electronic mails came to be called "spam". The history of spam is intertwined with the history of electronic mail.
While the linguistic significance of the usage of the word 'spam' is attributed to the British comedy troupe Monty Python in a now legendary sketch from their Flying Circus TV series, in which a group of Vikings sing a chorus of "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM..." at increasing volumes, the historic significance lies in it being adopted to refer to unsolicited commercial electronic mail sent to a large number of addresses, in what was seen as drowning out normal communication on the internet.
The first ARPANET spam was sent in 1971 by an MIT system administrator of CTSS “to all people on CTSS”.
In November 1975, Jon Postel wrote RFC 706, "On the junk mail problem," suggesting that the problem of junk electronic mail had been at least contemplated, if not experienced.
The first commercial spam electronic mail (although not yet called email), was sent on May 3, 1978, to around 400 users on the ARPANET. It was an advertisement for a presentation by Digital Equipment Corporation for their DECSYSTEM-20 products written by Gary Thuerk, a marketer of theirs, and Carl Gartley, an engineer who sent the message through Thuerk's account. It reportedly generated $13 million in sales. The reaction to it was almost universally negative—an ARPANET representative got Thuerk to promise not to do it again—and for a long time there were no further instances.
The name "spam" was actually first applied, in April 1993, not to an email, but to unwanted postings on Usenet newsgroup network. Richard Depew accidentally posted 200 messages to news.admin.policy and in the aftermath readers of this group were making jokes about the accident, when one person referred to the messages as "spam", coining the term that would later be applied to similar incidents over email.