Spam is any kind of unwanted online communication.
The most common form of spam is unwanted e-mail. You can also get text message spam, instant message spam (sometimes known as spim), and social networking spam.
Some spam is annoying but harmless. However, some spam is part of an identity theft scam or another kind of fraud. Identity theft spam is often called a phishing scam.
To protect yourself against e-mail spam, use e-mail software with built-in spam filtering. For a general guideline on protecting yourself from e-mail spams, please refer to the “Checklist: Protecting your business, your employees and your customers”.