Spam and its economic significance

Abstract

Although “spam” is a buzzword in today’s scientific and other media press, no homogeneous understanding exists of what precisely spam is. We address this definition issue by presenting and discussing prevalent definitions (Sect. 2.1), and we explain the understanding of “spam” that this work follows. Similar to the heterogeneity in defining spam, there are also no consistent empirical findings regarding the extent and the composition of spam. We explain the main reasons for this diversity, and we present statistics of “leading” market research organizations (Sect. 2.2). These numbers are useful for both the illustration of diversity and the provision of “dimensions”. We then categorize spam (Sect. 2.3) with examples, in order to support the addressing of the economic harm and the economic benefit that spam can cause (Sects. 2.4 and 2.5).