Hormel Gracefully Concedes On SPAM vs. Spam

dattaway writes: "Hormel has given up complaining about 'spam' referring to junk e-mail and makes a good point about our trademark system." Hormel has actually seemed pretty quiet, even good natured, on this front for a long time -- unlike certain companies, they haven't attempted to throttle everyone using those fateful four letters in sequence. (And that would have made them look bad, anyhow. Language evolves.) Now if only they would send infinite supplies of can-cooked spiced pink meat to the nasty kind of spammers ...

a year ago?

Hormel has actually seemed pretty quiet, even good natured, on this front for a long time [...]

Indeed, the datestamp on Hormel's page about this [spam.com] is Thu, 23 Jul 1998 18:46:44 GMT – nearly three years ago!

Re:Eat it!

I have heard that it stands for Squirrels, Possoms And Mice.

And it only took them four years...

Four years to realise that fighting the whole world in a battle that no one cared about - except for it's (mildly) humourous connotations - is counter-productive.

Of course they may have been told by their legal advisers that "spam" is now a defacto part of the English language (look iy up in the newer Oxford English dictionary) in both of it's meanings, and as such the use of the word to describe unsolicited e-mail could probably not have been challenged in court.

Even more history of spam (Usenet)

The way that spam became a usenet term only starts with the Monty Python sketch. What happened (a long time!) after the sketch is that some unhappy bugger decided to get annoying on the net (I don't remember the specifics of his complaint). He sent dozens of messages crossposted to many newsgroups with the text consisting of the extended version of the spam song

(spam spam spam.... ) {hundreds of lines of it!)

Originally, spamming really only referred to massive, crossposted postings on the usenet. Various names like UCE (Unwanted Commercial Email) / UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email) were the techinical term for the email 'spam', but Spam is far easier to say and remember (and more fun). People seem to have settled on spam (to Hormels mild consternation).
--

Any evidence of /. editors reading the comments?

This issue/suggestion has come up every single time there's a spam story (and thus, the SPAM logo is used). Somebody always, and correctly, brings up the Hormel Policy Statement and points out the problem with the logo.

The post is always, and correctly, modded up to 5, because we wouldn't like to see /. get sued.

The /. maintainers blissfully ignore the recommendations altogether. Do they even glance over the comments anymore? Even at Highest Scores First, Threaded, cutoff at +4, they should still have seen this recommendation half a dozen times by now.

If everyone suddenly stopped posting comments, how long would it take them to even notice?

wouldn't work

Too many spammers have a variety of resources at their disposals to continue spamming, mixmaster remailers, horrible configurations of sendmail from corporations, and nickle and dime webservers, etc.

Now what may work, is going after those responsible for the advertisements contained in spam. Example www.joebloworsomething.com hires someone to promote their site, and those people send promotions out via way of spam, I feel holding the people at the site responsible is better fitted.

Now bear with me on this a second. Sure it can seem somewhat unfair, but no one asks for spam, and by using someone's resources (bandwidth, whatever) companies should be made aware of how much their actions cause versus the amount of people who actually reply to spam. Think about it, company X sends say 20,000 spam emails a day, of which 1 replies and actually buys something, but out of those 20,000 500 decide to take company X to small claims court bitching...

See the laws fail when they're passed because you can't have one country's law dictate what is law in another country, and many politicians fail to see that when they waste time and money with their so called AntiSpam bills. You don't cut weeds in the garden half assed, you cut them at the root.

Stolen Uranium, and unsolved murders? [antioffline.com] non fiction at its best

Slashdot may be in trouble

From Policy Statement: We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. This would seem to say that Slashdot's use of a picture of a SPAM can to denote stories about UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail) is against their policy. And though I know I'll get modded down for saying it I can see their point.

So, now we can play nice, too

Funny, but this pops up on *every* spam topic:

Please refer to spam as 'spam', not 'SPAM'!
And either get rid of the icon, or photoshop it to show locercase 'spam'.

Darn, the company is being so reasonable, and we're still doing our best to irritate them with this.

I just don't get it.

---
"What, I need a *reason* for everything?" -- Calvin

Re:The word 'hacker'

. . . it's just as clear what people mean by hacker in context as it is that I don't have pink meat in my inbox.

I may not have any "pink meat" in my mailbox, but according to a large percentage of spam I receive, it is only a few clicks away!

--

Eat more SPAM^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H

Drangel mused that the new use of the company's top brand might actually benefit Hormel. The theory is that having more people talk and think about spam will cause more people to buy and eat SPAM.

So this a case of accidental marketing.

Works on me. I had never had any SPAM before, but sometime in 1996, something changed in me. I tried it, and thought it was OK. Time passed, and I kept buying the stuff, and started trying out the recipes on the sides of the cans. Those folks at Hormel (tm) come up with some pretty tasty recipes! Let's face in, SPAM-n-eggs is pretty nasty, but Chicken SPAM-on-Bleu is fabulous! So is SPAM-a-roni and cheese, and SPAM and mushroom pizzas.

But take it from me, don't make SPAM cupcakes!

a further, but brief history of SPAM

First an acronym for Specially Processed Artificial Meat (Spiced Pork and hAM also?). Fed to WW I soldiers in the trenches. Also at the center of the first spam debate--rancid meat. Was exposed by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle which detailed the horrendously unsanitary conditions of the meat packing industry. Spam's ingredients were first "Everything from the pig but the squeal!"

The nufty stuff you learn in HIS104 - 20th Century American History

Re:Eat it!

Since I have no moderator points, and this is an excellent response to a silly post, I will simply cut and paste it at my higher base posting score and take the karma burn if anyone decides that's reduntant or off topic.

There are three reasons:

1. Fruit and vegetable consumption was much higher than it is today, partially negating the bad effects of high-fat diets.

2. Activity levels were higher, particularly in rural populations.

3. Most people died of something else first. For example, before widespread refrigeration, stomach cancer (from eating salted and smoked meats) was a leading killer.

To the second point I would also add that during the winter the added fuel of all the fat would be burned off keeping the poor blokes warm. I used to give my family's outside cats (dad insisted, poor kitties) hot fat and meat drippings over their dry food or some stale bread during the winter. It helped them deal with the cold, they didn't get fat from it and like many of our ancestors they died of other causes well before heart disease was even on the radar.

Kahuna Burger

"Illegal hacker" == cracker

How long till all the geeks admit "hacker" is the same thing as a "cracker"?

I'd be satisfied if the media called computer crime "illegal hacking," just as it calls recreational substances "illegal drugs" to contrast with legitimate drugs such as ASPIRIN® [aspirin.com].

Confusing trademarks with copyrights

"aspirin" used to be a registered trademark?

According to this Flash map [aspirin.com], ASPIRIN® is still a trademark in many jurisdictions; Bayer had to give it up in the U.S. after WWI.

trademarks slopping over into public domain even before the 75-year trademark expiration date.

Bullshit. Trademark registrations can be renewed every 10 years. This renewal is legitimate, unlike the 20-year across-the-board renewals that Disney keeps buying [pineight.com] for copyrights that severely erode the public's end of the bargain [gnu.org] under which the Constitution authorizes certain government-granted monopolies [everything2.com].

And yes, I do like the taste of SPAM luncheon meat and SPAMBURGER sandwiches.

Re:Eat more SPAM

Well, I'm European and I had never heard about a meal called SPAM before. When I went to the U.S. I saw the cans on a supermarket shelf, and I thought: "Hey, this stuff has the same name as junk mail!" I tried it just out of curiosity... and they won a new customer. A side effect of this story was that now I understand what the "Spam" icon in /. is.

Good for Hormel...

Kudos to Hormel for standing out as a shining example of a sensible, rational company in the otherwise delusional corporate world.

No kudos whatsoever to those who for years refused to even consider honoring Hormel's quite reasonable requests regarding the use of the SPAM trademark.

After years of sticking to your guns and standing up for what you believe in, you've finally beaten the good guys. Go, team.