The term spam was first used in the US as a abbreviation for non - Solicited Pornography and Marketing Acted. In the most recent definition given to the term, spam refers to the “massive and sometimes repeated sending of unsolicited electronic messages to persons with whom the sender has never had contact and whose e-mail address has been obtained by illegal means.

The spammer - the one who sends the unsolicited messages - needs a list of email addresses to send his messages. These can be obtained legally or illegally.
An address is considered to be unlawfully obtained when the spammer uses different search engines to find valid addresses on the Internet or when, using special programs, the spammer uses various combinations to obtain possible addresses.

What is the purpose of searching for these email addresses? The spammer, who may be a natural or legal person, sends to these addresses, in their own interest or in exchange for a sum of money, for the benefit of another person, emails with advertising information, of a commercial or pornographic nature, to determine the recipient to purchase different products or services.

Who are the Spammers?

We distinguish five categories:

- sellers of products or services (some of which are illegal): viagra, pyramid games for money, cigarettes etc;
- sellers of computer products at preferential price, but with illegal license, most likely pirated;
- people who practice a growing type of spam, consisting of selling luxury products (travel, hotel services, etc.);
- those who, through fraudulent maneuvers, seek to obtain the banking data of the naive users;
- the people who test possible e-mail addresses, to verify their validity, so that they can subsequently sell them to other spammers of the mentioned categories.