I bought one thing from them and now they email me every day

I bought one bath towel in March. They write to me more often than my mother does. — Online shopper, 2026

The first mass marketing email went out in May 1978, to a few hundred people on the early internet, inviting them to come look at some new computers. One fellow said it shut down his system. The people running the network told the sender not to do it again. By his own account it sold millions of dollars' worth of computers, so you can guess how much the scolding counted for. A 2003 law finally said every one of these has to let you unsubscribe. Nobody has to ask you first.

For now: hit unsubscribe; by law, they have 10 business days to stop.

The full file

The man who sent it was Gary Thuerk, a marketer at Digital Equipment Corp. It went out at 12:33 on May 3, 1978, to 397 accounts, inviting them to see the new DECSYSTEM-20 computers.

The name came later, from Monty Python. In a 1970 sketch a bunch of Vikings keep singing "Spam" until nobody else can get a word in. Merriam-Webster dates the junk-email meaning to 1990.

The first big one for profit came in April 1994, when two immigration lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, posted an ad for their green-card services all over Usenet. The complaints crashed their internet provider again and again. They said it brought in more than $100,000. So much for complaints.

The law gives you a little. The unsubscribe link has to keep working for at least 30 days, they can't charge you or ask for anything but your email address, and once you're out they can't sell your address to anybody. Use it.

Relates to No. 09360.