A set of terms around a practise which grew over the last years as the Internet became more and more commercialized and a more normal means of communication. Sending unsollicited email to people by the thousands hoping some of those people will buy the product advertised. Also, filling newsgroups with messages like these.
On this page I gathered some information about it, information on what I do with spam, and links to other sources of information. By no means complete, but especially written to make my views very clear.
In general, the Internet is built on mutual trust and mutual cooperation. There is enough advertising out there in newspapers, on radio and television and in the landscape around us. Keep the Internet for what it was originally menth for, sharing information and resources and don't stuff your message down someone else's throat.
The most beautiful rant about what is so bad about spamming newsgroups and abusing Internet in general was posted recently. Read it. In full.
To make life simpler, I have a simple script which quotes full headers and body of the mail.
Most of the time I don't get such an answer at such a short notice. But the replies I do get do show reporting spam makes a difference.
I do filter mail on my personal account using procmail. A number of simple rules can deal with easily identifyable spam.
Offcourse the Dutch mirror of the abuse.net anti-spam site. The dutch mirror is hosted at Cetis, the contents is maintained and translated by Thijs Kinkhorst and I was the one to make it technically possible.
This site has loads of information about dealing with spam, finding out where it came from, filtering spam.
I do actively participate in Usenet II, an initiative to build a 'new Usenet' this time with rules and sanctions for not keeping the rules. Usenet II feeds are available at news.cetis.hvu.nl for anyone who asks (and is willing to keep the rules).