At least one newsgroup, which discusses US visas, would have been a perfect site for the message. Others may also have fitted the bill. But to many people the message was just an annoyance, the electronic equivalent of junk mail. Spamming has been used to describe widespread, unwanted postings since about 1990. Last year an evangelist spammed the Usenet with a long message proclaiming that 'Jesus is coming'.
Minor incidents happen almost daily, usually from pyramid marketing schemes or chain letters.
Spamming is unpopular because it clogs the Usenet, obscuring its purpose, which is to let individuals communicate with each other about subjects that interest them. Such actions usually prompt an apology, if only because it becomes hugely time- consuming to sort out a few positive replies from the hundreds of angry ones. First, it was legal, unlike pyramid marketing schemes or chain letters, which are illegal in many countries. They did not, and do not, apologise. The response to their posting was unprecedented.