Spam is a term commonly used within the Internet community for unsolicited commercial email (UCE). It has been estimated by some Internet service providers (ISPs)that 10-45 percent of their email server storage space is taken up by spam at any given time. This is a huge problem for the Internet since so many people seem willing to abuse our collective messaging infrastructure for their own selfish interests.

Since you are reading a book on email programming, one must presume that you have a desire to send email programmatically. Since that gives you the power to abuse the system, let this chapter serve as a warning. The chapter exists solely to make sure that you, the reader, are aware that unsolicited email is a BAD THING. It annoys people—sometimes it annoys the people that band together to make ISPs, governments, and businesses. Sometimes it annoys lawyers. Those who ignore this advice can count on legal trouble, mail bombs, troubles with their ISP, and probably a loss of friends.

As the spammer known only as “Nobody U Know” has been quoted as saying, “De spite the profitability of spamming, bulking, junking, UCE, or whatever your favorite term is for the practice,^[26] the glory days are over, and it is just too much of headache to keep going. There are easier ways to make good money than to constantly be fighting not only anti-spammers, but your ISP and your backbone, and to be worrying about legislation or aggressive ISPs that are sick of spam.”

So, don’t do it. This is not a manual for creating spam. We have left out details of the various holes in the SMTP protocol, knowing that those with sufficient technical knowledge can figure it out, but that those with a purely commercial interest will need to go elsewhere for the information. Additionally, this chapter contains some information on how to fight spam.

This should not be taken as an attack on Internet marketing in general, only on the forms that do not provide choice. So-called “opt-in” systems, in which consumers can choose to provide their email address and other personal information in exchange for incentives, are a more ethical way to market than the shotgun approach of spam.