February 11, 2009 3:00 PM
- Text
30 Years Of Spam E-Mails
(CBS)
By Sunday Morning host Charles Osgood.
Let the record show that yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of SPAM.
No, not Spam the luncheon meat that Monty Python went on about, though it was that chorus of "Spam Spam Spam Spam" that's thought to be the genesis of the term to describe the flood of unasked-for e-mails we find in our "in" boxes.
On May 3, 1978, an employee of the old Digital Equipment Company mass-mailed an ad for a new computer to fellow users on a forerunner of today's Internet.
Many recipients OBJECTED.
Little did they know what was coming …
By one estimate, spam now accounts for 90 percent of all e-mail … as many as 120 BILLION spam messages per day.
Let the record show that yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of SPAM.
No, not Spam the luncheon meat that Monty Python went on about, though it was that chorus of "Spam Spam Spam Spam" that's thought to be the genesis of the term to describe the flood of unasked-for e-mails we find in our "in" boxes.
On May 3, 1978, an employee of the old Digital Equipment Company mass-mailed an ad for a new computer to fellow users on a forerunner of today's Internet.
Many recipients OBJECTED.
Little did they know what was coming …
By one estimate, spam now accounts for 90 percent of all e-mail … as many as 120 BILLION spam messages per day.
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