Spam at 30. Happy birthday, sort of

I prefer my spam...in a can

We'll find out later whether this really is Microhoo Day. If it's another false alarm, May 3 will retain its place in computer history as the day spam was born. Thirty years ago, some guy entered the record books for being the first to pitch unwanted commercial e-mail.

Remember all those predictions about how spam would be resolved by now? Still waiting. Government hasn't figured out the answer. Ditto the technology industry. Wonder if we'll still be bemoaning spam and its discontents 30 years ago from today? (Cue up "Sergeant Pepper" right about now.)

[wango2007]

1978? No email as we know it then. The university/military people must have been spamming each other. I doubt this anniversary year is a valid one.

[rapier1]

yes there was email and email as we know it. Go read RFC 706 published in 1975 by Jon Postel. Sure, Arpanet wasne't nearly the size of the internet as we know now it but by 1978 it had most of the foundational characteristics of the modern Internet.

[charlie cooper]

via arpanet...a sales guy named Gary Thuerk sent out the message " "We invite you to come see the 2020 and hear about the DECSYSTEM-20 family at the two product presentations we will be giving in California this month." that was on May 3, 1978.

[My-Self]

Here are the 100 spammers responsible for more than 80% of all the spam volume :
http://www.spamhaus.org/Rokso/

Spam still exists because there is no political will to stop it, and now that antispam products are an established category making more money globally than the spammers + spam support services, we see conflicting interests and a decreasing will to remedy the problem. In the meantime, the scourge still causes millions of hours in lost productivity, consumer confusion and lack of trust for all online businesses.