Spamming, ie: the sending of SPAM, is the abusive practice of utilizing electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk communication, most typically advertising. While the most widely recognized form of SPAM is through e-mail, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media including instant messaging, Usenet newsgroups, web search engines, blogs, wiki, online classified ads, mobile phone messaging, Internet forums, FAX transmissions, and file sharing networks. SPAM is wide spread and, in some instances, makes the effective and efficient use of some messaging systems all but useless.
Spamming is an economically viable method of reaching a large number of people because advertisers have little or no operating costs beyond the management of basic mailing lists. It is difficult to hold spammers accountable for their mass mailings and, as a result, the practice has expanded and grown significantly over the past few years. Because the barrier to entry to the processes so low spammers are numerous and the volume of unsolicited messaging, especially in regular email, has become extremely high. The costs to legitimate business, due to such things as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the increased volume. Spamming is widely reviled by the general public, and has been the subject of legislation in an attempt to bring it under control. Although it seems enticing, spamming is not a good way to promote your business.
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2004, and it's regulations (see another article on this site), is one effort by the Federal Government to begin to control SPAM. New enforcement actions are making a mark as the first successful prosecutions are beginning to appear. You can forward SPAM email to: spam@uce.gov