Spam is the mass distribution of messages, usually of an advertising nature, to people who have not given their consent to receive them. Email, SMS, social networks, and messengers are often used for sending spam. In everyday life, spam can be phone calls from unknown numbers or the distribution of advertising postcards through mailboxes. The vast majority of people react to spam with disgust because it is extremely intrusive and does not inspire trust.
A common characteristic of spam is low personalization of messages, when the text is too general and does not provide personal addresses. Spam also often contains an unrealistically generous offer, for example, scammers promise a large sum of money or an expensive gift. Spammers make the text as bright as possible — toxic colors, many exclamation marks, large font, etc. All to push the user to the desired action.
Spam is a common tool among scammers who add phishing links or dangerous software to the message. As a result, spam victims may lose their personal data or money. For example, scammers send letters about winning the lottery and insert a link into the message. According to their plan, the user should go to the site and enter their payment card details, supposedly to receive a cash reward. As a result, payment data is stolen along with the funds.
Spam is most often sent by email and social networks. Email services have their own tools to protect users from spam. The system automatically evaluates incoming mail — looks at its title, content, and who the sender is. After that, it decides whether to send the letter to spam, where the user will not see it or to skip it to the inbox. In social networks, spammers can use comments on posts, community posts, or private messages. To protect against such messages, manual blocking of spammers or a complaint about their message will help, so that social network moderators block this account.
Even ordinary marketing activity can be considered spam. All because of mistakes that the sender made when creating the mailing list. For example, buying a contact base instead of collecting it independently. The mail system will logically consider such a mailing list as spam, which will lead to the sender's email domain being blocked by spam filters.
