What is Spam?

Spam is generally classified as any unsolicited or unwanted email message advertising real or fake products you would never use. Spam email messages are basically electronic junk mail sent to a mailing list, listserv or newsgroup you presently or previously have been subscribed.

Spam ranges from fad diet products to fake prescription drugs, scholarship programs, legal services, vacation packages, questionable investment opportunities (scams), fake sweepstakes and even solicitations from international con-men trying to get you to send them money.

Spam creates more problems than just the nuisance factor of dealing with it on a personal level as evidenced by the amount of time it takes to regularly remove it from your inbox. Spam causes email servers to become overloaded resulting in slow response from the email system. Spam left unchecked can ultimately put our email system in jeopardy of being blacklisted by internet email relay servers, disallowing the sending and receiving of email from our systems, virtually shutting down the email service.

Now that we know what spam is, and how to identify it, what do we want to do with it?

We want to delete it from our INBOX.

This can be accomplished in a couple of different ways. One method is just deleting the message. Just delete, do not reply to or try to unsubscribe from the sender as this will create more spam. Another method is to use one of the preconfigured spam or junk filters in your email client or you can create your own filter.