/ Is spam the same as junkmail?

Is spam the same as junkmail?

Kat Delong Yes and no. Both spam and junk mailings are unwanted correspondence. If you analyze the properties of spam, you will see ways in which it is different from the physical junkmail that lands in your mailbox every day.

Spam costs the recipient money

While you may get a few unwanted catalogs or newspaper circulars in the mailbox, it only takes a second to realize that it is something you don’t want and toss it in the recycling bin. With spam, they usually put a misleading subject in the header in order to get you to open the email. Once you’ve opened the email, you then must delete it and hope that you haven’t been exposed to a costly virus or other evil contained within. If you only received one or two spam emails per day, this wouldn’t be a big deal. The fact is, if you don’t have a good spam blocking system in place, you can easily receive upwards of one hundred spam emails per day, which amounts to a significant amount of valuable time lost. In addition to the time lost, the user is the one who pays for internet access, so the spammer is using a channel that you pay for to send unwanted messages.

Spam is usually garbage

Junkmail can be annoying when it lands in your mailbox, but in most cases it is more targeted than spam. If you have purchased goods from a particular catalog, they may send you additional catalogs that contain things you are interested in, or they may send you coupons or sale notices. While there are a few cases of spam that follow these principals, most spam is for bogus health or financial products or things that you would never be interested in buying. The difference here is that junkmailers actually have to pay to send you mailings in the form of printing the catalog or ads as well as the postage to send it. Spammers can send millions of emails for a very low cost. The tiny percentage of people who buy their products still makes it a lucrative advertising vehicle for them.

Spam has very little regulation

Despite efforts to regulate spam in the past few years, there have been First Amendment concerns that have slowed the process. In contrast, junkmailers are limited in what they can send by federal postal regulations. In addition, the emerging green movement has put pressure on junk mailers by encouraging recipients to opt out of physical mailings.