spam
spam Informal To send an e-mail message in an indiscriminate way (or, as a noun, the actual mail message). Many systems have publicly accessible distribution lists, typically holding the e-mail addresses of a group of users who share a common interest and wish to distribute material to colleagues on the list. A large system will have many such lists, often with overlapping membership, and on occasions spamming will occur: unwanted mail messages, such as sales literature, have been sent to every member of every mailing list on every system attached to a network, regardless of the extent to which the same person may be on several lists, or whether the recipients have any interest in the contents of the message. This activity is a breach of netiquette. The recipients of spam may respond by flaming. (The word derives from a Monty Python sketch concerned with excessive offerings of cooked spam.)
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spam