Spam

Spam is a type abuse that carries certain penalties. Spam occurs when any type of unwanted bulk message is sent randomly and carelessly. There are many types of spam. The most popular and well-known type of spam is email spam. However, just as common (but less noticeable by the general public) are other types of electronic media abuse such as search engine spam, mobile phone spam (including texting spam), instant messaging spam, and spam in blogs, newsgroups, social networking, and forums.

Spam has been around for quite a while (although not called spam, necessarily). However, the annoyance and potential damage caused by spam have increased as technology has changed. Spam today can cripple search engines and destroy your hard drive. Spam can shut down websites or raise an obscure webpage to sudden (and irritating) prominence.

Fax spam was a common thing of the 1990s, when junk fax transmittal of advertisements or other unsolicited material was sent via fax machine. This was particularly annoying since the company receiving the junk fax transmittal had to pay for each fax received. Some advertisers called this "broadcast faxing" or "fax advertisement" but the practice often met with some resistance and hostility. Remember, this was back in the days when one fax came in at a time and you paid for each fax and long distance call separately, so having junk mail "jamming" the fax machine meant that a company paid to receive junk fax transmittals that held up the fax machine and preventing true customers and clients from being able to send faxes.

Spam can be e-mail spam, mobile phone spam, social networking spam, forum spam, instant messaging spam, blog spam, newsgroup spam, search engine spam, file sharing network spam, online classified ads spam, and other types of spam. As new forms of communication develop, new types of spam develop alongside it, like weeds.