what does spam mean

Spam is the Internet version of unsolicited telemarketing phone calls. This bulk e-mail, or junk mail, arrives day and night in your mail program and can cause your e-mail program to clog. Do not open spam mail. Just delete it . . . quickly. An electronic message is "spam" IF:

		the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND
		the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent.

Spam is an issue about consent, not content. Whether the UBE message is an advert, a scam, porn, a begging letter or an offer of a free lunch, the content is irrelevant - if the message was sent unsolicited and in bulk then the message is spam.

Spam is not a sub-set of UBE, it is not "UBE that is also a scam or that doesn't contain an unsubscribe link", all email sent unsolicited and in bulk is Spam.

This distinction is important because legislators spend inordinate amounts of time attempting to regulate the content of spam messages, and in doing so come up against free speech issues, without realizing that the spam issue is solely about the delivery method.