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The Global Problem of Spamming and Unsolicited E-mail Essay

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The Global Problem of Spamming and Unsolicited E-mail

Introduction

Spamming and unsolicited email has become a growing issue all over the world. As the internet grows, so does the problem of spamming. With the evolution of the internet, there has been a love and hate relationship among the spammed and the spammers.

Before going into discussing further about spamming, we have to actually define spamming:

Spamming is sending a message or multiple copies of a message to many inappropriate newsgroups or sending a single or multiple copies of a message to any mailbox for an individual who did not specifically request the email1.

If we look at it even more simply we can define spamming as “any unsolicited e-mail”2. Therefore any …show more content…

If we take a look at the above definition of spam, an advertisement is spam only when it has not been subscribed by the receiver.

Another common form of email is chained emails. An example of such an email would say things like “If you don’t send this email to 20 other people you will die” or emails which encourage forwarding by promising money and other rewards.

Chain letters generally include a list of names and addresses with instructions to send something - say, a small sum of money - to one or more names on a list. Then, you are instructed to remove one or more names from the list, add your name to the bottom of the list, and email the letter to a certain number of other people with directions on how to "continue the chain."3

Almost all of these emails are somehow or the other unsolicited and therefore can be generally called as spam.

Problems faced by users and services providers

The important question that arises from this is that: Is spamming a problem? If it is a problem, then what kind of problem arises and who are the victims and beneficiaries?

To answer the first question on whether spamming is really a problem an email service provider Arosnet says:

When you post a message to a newsgroup or email address, that message goes out to thousands of computers all over the globe, which millions of people read every day. When you spam with multiple messages, you're sending thousands of

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