CAN-SPAM Overview

Unsolicited email, otherwise known as spam, has been a major problem since the early days of the Internet. It is believed that the very first spam was sent in 1978, to a total of 600 email addresses. In those days, Internet users were generally charged for usage, and email boxes were limited to only a few megabytes of storage space. When the storage limit was reached, the email provider could simply stop delivering messages or, on some providers, charge a fee for every message over the limit. The charges incurred by internet users to receive and maintain email boxes full of spam led to spam's being compared to postage-due junk mail. Read more