What is spam?

Spam has two faces for a company, and most organisations defend against only one of them. The defensive face is familiar: unsolicited bulk messages, chiefly by email but long since also by text, messaging apps, contact forms and comment fields. They are not merely a waste of attention — they are the preferred vehicle for phishing and malware, since the boundary between an irritating advert and an attack is often just the sender’s intent. The defence lives in modern filtering, which the major business mail platforms do well and can be hardened through policy; in address hygiene, because a plain-text office address published on a website will be harvested by robots; and in the reflexes of your people, because a percentage of it gets through any filter ever built. The second face is less understood and considerably more expensive: not becoming spam yourself, legally and technically. Legally, email marketing to individuals requires prior consent, a working unsubscribe link is an obligation rather than a courtesy, and a purchased address list is a fine waiting for its date. Technically — and here entirely honest companies lose real money — your legitimate quotes, invoices and newsletters can land in junk folders because of configuration rather than content. Without domain authentication through SPF, DKIM and DMARC, the DNS records proving your servers are permitted to send in your name, the large mailbox providers treat you with suspicion by default, and the commercial cost of undelivered mail is invisible: the quote that never arrived does not complain, it simply goes unanswered.