About Spam
Generally defined, spam is electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. However, if a long-lost brother finds your e-mail address and sends you a message, this could hardly be called spam, even though it's unsolicited. Real spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product or service sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.
In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. But the Internet is public, so there is really little that can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, Iowa Telecom has instituted a number of policies and invested significant money to prevent spammers from reaching you.
There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam." Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunch meat Spam:
- Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
- No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
- Rarely it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.
What does Iowa Telecom do about spam?
Lots. Iowa Telecom uses a variety of techniques to identify spam and reject it before it ever hits your inbox. On some days these techniques reject or constrain nearly 80% of the mail targeted for delivery to Iowa Telecom users. Despite the expense of acquiring and administering these measures, Iowa Telecom offers this basic level of spam protection to every user at no additional cost. Spam is simply too much of a nuisance to be allowed to continue as it is, and by using these spam rejecting techniques, Iowa Telecom is putting the pressure on spammers to go find honest work and give e-mail back its good name.
Iowa Telecom also offers additional levels of personal spam control to users that would like to take advantage of it. You can get information on these latest offerings by clicking either link below. |
