Forty Years of Spam Email (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC has a video celebrating the 40th birthday of spam email. Here's a transcript of the video: "It is 40 years since the first spam email was sent. Marketer Gary Thuerk composed an email selling his company's newest computers and sent it to 400 users on ARPANET, which was the network that become the basis for the internet. Why is it called spam? It has been suggested that it was called spam after a song in a Monty Python sketch. Where patrons of a cafe were repeatedly offered something they didn't want. The concept of spam is nothing new. Unsolicited telegrams were sent over 100 years ago and we've come to accept junk mail as part of everyday life. Now [nearly 60%] of all email is spam. Like most rubbish, it can be found everywhere on earth."

Comments

INCREASE YOUR TONER CARTRIDGE SIZE, NATURALLY!

[guacamole]

This message is not spam.

It's not the song that give it the name

[Laxator2]

It is the credits at the end.

Just watch the credits roll and you see the word "Spam" inserted everywhere.
Just like the junk messages littering you inbox, interspersed with the real messages.

Written and spam performed by:

Spam Terry Jones

Michael Spam Palin

John Spam John Spam
John Spam Cleese

Graham Spam Spam
Spam Chapman

etc..

Re:Paper junk mail is very lucrative for the Post

[Buchenskjoll]

I do the same with spam emails. I print them out and make briquettes. I saves me loads of money.