Web Talk

So, this year Spam is 30 years old. The first spam ever emailed was sent on the 3rd of May 1979 by Gary Thuerk, owner of Digital Equipment Corporation (which doesn’t exsit anymore). Gary Thuerk had free access to Arpanet which was the USA defense’s Network (Arpanet is considered to be the first Internet ever invented). Basically, he managed to sent “just” 393 emails to people belonging to this network to promote some of his new products. People who got this email didn’t react very well and, of course, there were a lot of complaints, including the ones from the Arpanet administrators. If you want to know more about the first spam, the people involved and what happened, click here.

Nowadays, Spam is very different from its, almost innocent, beginning. Its is estimated to be from 80% to 90% of the total emails which are sent through Internet. This traffic is sent something like 120 billions of times every day and involves millions of people who are daily bombed by junk mails. The war to fight Spam is impressive and involves hundreds of companies which use expensive software and hardware. By the end of 2008 it is estimated that the cost to fight Spam will reach 140 billions of dollars spent by companies scattered all over the world.