Where Does Email Spam Come From?

Spam is the term commonly used to describe unsolicited email that usually tries to sell something. It is important to recognize the fact that spam is unsolicited because many companies do indeed build legitimate opt-in email lists for their newsletters and advertising. These companies are not considered to be spammers because they have allowed you to choose to receive the messages that they send. Opt-in is a term that means that you have made the decision to receive the emails and have contacted the company in some way in order to give them permission to send you emails. This may have included filling out a small form on a website or clicking a box when you´ve made a purchase from a company that has indicated that you´d like to hear about promotions they have to offer. These are companies that care about their reputation.

On the other hand, spammers are companies that do not care about their reputation online. They aren´t even easy to reach by any form of communication without performing some research, first, because the email address they provide for the message is typically an outgoing address only and cannot receive messages. The key to spam messages is usually to get you to follow a link and make a purchase.

You may wonder why spam is such a popular way to advertise for so many companies since everybody you know likely deletes them or has a filter that automatically removes them from sight. The thing is that spamming is an exceptionally inexpensive way to advertise. So even if only one in one hundred people – or even one in one thousand people, depending on how many people are on the list – follow the link and make a purchase from the site, it makes it worth the while to have messaged the many other people who simply clicked the "delete" button.

However, sometimes spammers are very tricky with their subject lines and it´s hard to tell if their emails are legit or not before opening them. This is where a free reverse email lookup can also come in very handy.