Posted by Skymouse on May 12, 2001 at 05:46
In Reply to: question for all posted by poor to loo on May 11, 2001 at 19:42
"Spam" on the Internet originally meant an identical message that was cross-posted on many different Newsgroups, even ones where the message wasn't quite appropriate. This practice reminded people of the food called spam (="SPiced hAM"), which was popularly supposed to be an overused food that was unimaginatively put with everything.
Since then, with the growth in email and the web, internet "spam" has changed its meaning and now has come to mean any kind of unsolicited nuisance message, especially commercial or off-topic.