It is also called UCE, unsolicited commercial mail, or UBE, unsolicited bulk, e-mail. Legend has it that Monty Python's Spam eating Vikings provided the model for the naming. Canter and Siegel are considered by many to be the first of the major spammers with their mass e-mail in 1994. It may arrive via messages posted to newsgroups, generally having nothing to do with the group, or may be sent directly to you through the scan of internet mail lists. At one point AOL received so much mail from CyberPromotions that it needed a court order to stop them.
Some spammers even use intermediaries to try to avoid detection and blocking.
It certainly thinks so. Well, first of all it is not free. It is the ISP who must store and forward this mail. It does not arrive postage due. Well, maybe, maybe not.