Hormel Foods Corporation, the maker of Spam luncheon meat, has
accepted the use of the term “spam” as a word for junk e-mail,
provided the alternative meaning is written in lower case and its
product referred to in capitals. This concession comes at a time
when a US congressional committee has significantly weakened a bill
aiming to restrain the use of unsolicited e-mail.
Hormel used the name SPAM in 1937 following a competition to
find a better name for its “Spiced Ham” product. Unsolicited
commercial e-mail is thought to have been called spam after a Monty
Python sketch involving a restaurant that sold Hormel’s meat with
every dish.
Spam e-mail is a controversial topic with little applicable law.
In the US, the original drafting of the Unsolicited Commercial
Electronic Mail Act 2001 allowed consumers to raise actions against
junk e-mailers if recipients were not pulled from lists on the
consumer’s request. This consumer right to take action has since
been removed, leaving only ISPs with the ability to sue if they can
prove the e-mailing has caused loss, such as crashed servers and
downtime.
The modified bill is expected to be considered by the House of
Representatives during the summer.
