Every day our mailbox is filled with wonderful "special offers", prescriptions and remedies, free gambling and pornography, investment advice, toner, insurance, ad nauseum. Spam often has a deceptive subject line and/or a bogus return address. Some spam is legitimate and some is fraudulent. Spam is not the same as the occasional mailings you may receive from companies with which you have an established relationship. These companies are reputable and they will gladly honor requests to be removed from their mailing list. Spam works because a small percentage of people choose to respond to it. If spam were not profitable it would simply go away. It is profitable and it probably won't go away any time soon.