08 May 2003

Happy Birthday, Spam!

Although many believe spam is a relatively new concept, it's twenty-five years since the first junk email was sent on 3 May 1978. Marketing executives at Digital Equipment Corp realised the potential of capturing this new medium - but it's unlikely they could have seen the effect it would have on our inboxes in 2003. Today 40% of the email we receive is unsolicited spam.

The first junk mail raised controversy at a time when the Internet, known as Arpanet, was created for non-commercial system for universities and government bodies. Twenty-five years on the controversy remains with governments debating proposed measures to quash serial spammers.