Let me first say that there are no hard feelings towards the canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation. That kind of Spam is great. The product has gained a peculiar infamy and has even entered into folklore and urban legend. We wish you continued success… 

As far as the electronic version goes - and to reference a famous Mark Twainism - spam is like the weather…everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

Is it the predictable subject matter? The occasionally offensive content? The ridiculous schemes targeted at the (apparently) extremely gullible? Is it the clumsiness with which this bizarre style of "advertising" is delivered? The bad grammar and misspelling to trick our email filters? I’m not sure, but this is my rant.  

Raise your hand if you routinely see these things in your inbox:

It’s brutal. Wikipedia defines spam as the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, which are universally undesired.

Re-read those last two words: universally undesired. Has any one thing ever been more disliked by more people? These deceitful, low cost, no accountability methods drive us all crazy day-in and day-out: fake products, lottery fraud, chain letters, pyramid schemes, Nigerian fortunes that have been left to YOU – all utterly irritating. No, it’s more than irritating. These days it is a drain on business productivity, an increasingly costly waste of time and resources that continually bung up personal accounts as well corporate networks where workers are distracted. Oh yea, then there’s that whole threat of spreading viruses that follows spam like its little brother. What a bonus…

It causes to me to ask: what’s the point? Are people actually falling for these scams and replying to these swindlers with their personal information. I imagine some must, why else would it continue, right? Or better yet, the messages that I receive in foreign languages – these are highly effective – I can’t make out a word even I were to click on your disposable link.

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