Spam Celebrates Silver Jubilee

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2996319.stm' target='_blank'>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2996319.stm</a><br /><br /></div>"One of the most annoying aspects of the internet, spam, is 25 years old this weekend. Net historians have trawled records and found that the first junk e-mail message hawking a company or its wares was sent back in 1978. Coincidentally, the first commercial spam sent to Usenet discussion groups was sent a little over 10 years ago. Now spam is thought to account for up to 40% of all e-mail messages sent across the net and many industry groups, companies and technologists are uniting to fight the flood."<br /><br />Since we've been discussing the impact of email spam on mobile devices, I thought this article was an appropriate follow-up for those interested in the history of spam. Read it and weep...literally. :cry:

[Hyperluminal]

"Happy Birthday to Mass Commerical Email Marketing! Dear Friend, did you know that Mass Commerical Email Marketing is 25 years old? Because of that, we have dealz just for YOU. We will give you a FREE DIPLOMA from one of many leading nonaccredited Universities! Or how about getting back a revolked drivers license for PENNIES! We'll even throw in MetaFatLat, the LEADING WEIGHTLOSS PILL! THis is NOT MLM OR A PYRAMID SCHEME, JUST A THANKYOU FOR 25 YEARS OF EMAIL MARKETING!!!"

;)

[Timothy Rapson]

Actually, junk electronic messages go back to the time of the telegraph. At a time when the only time anyone ever got a telegram was to let them know of a death, a Victorian funeral home or some such business spent an enormous amount of money to send telegrams to thousands of households in London to hawk their product. Some 150 years ago. They were all delivered on the same night and the whole town freaked out and shouted about what the government should do to stop this outrage......sound familiar?

People, what a fine world it could be without them. :silly: