What Is Spam?

Spam is unwanted electronic mail which is sent in bulk. E-mail spam involves unwanted bulk emails which are exactly the same being sent to the recipient. Email providers usually offer filters in order to help the recipient get rid of spam mail.

There is also instant messaging spam, which is sometimes known as SPIM. Many instant messaging services such as Yahoo! and MSN give users the option of ticking a box which enables them to only receive messages from the people on their contact list in order to prevent spam. Spam can also be found in blogs, mobile phones, forums, search engines etc.

It was Monty Python's sketch involving a restaurant with only spam to eat which caused the term 'spam' to come about. In the sketch, the only food on the menu is spam, which is a reference to spam being one of the few foods available during the second world war.

Spam basically is tinned precooked meat product which is produced by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

Spam is available in quite a few varieties like, chopped pork shoulder meat along with ham meat with extra salt water, sugar and sodium nitrate. Spam is created in Austin, Minnesota, America. Launched on 5th, July 1937, the product name "spam' was selected during the 1930s when the product whose initial name was less well known started to lose market share. The name was selected after numerous entries in a naming competition. An official once said that the original meaning of spam was "shoulder pork and ham'.

Surveys conducted in the year 2003 stated that spam was marketed in over 41 countries across the globe and the biggest customers of spam after America are United Kingdom and South Korea.