As Email is entering it’s fifth decade, I’ve noticed that the quantity of spam reaching my inbox has dramatically declined. Not only that, the spam is becoming far more interesting.

Most of what I would have considered spam years ago are advertising I voluntarily subscribe to. For example, email from Sears, MacMall, ThinkGeek, Cheaper Than Dirt, and others are advertising I want to see. Really! I mean, it’s still technically spam because it’s like “junk mail,” but I’m subscribing to it on purpose.

The bulk of stuff that annoyed me years ago seems to be subsiding. I no longer get four or five requests for ED medication every hour. And the porn spam has subsided, although I suffered a spate of it recently. No images, just some bizarre text like:

Big ***ty blonde anime
militaristic status quo and war forever. Who perhaps prefer a futureDoors were slammed and Ljotur shouted a command to the drivers. So what do you want us for? Floyd asked.loud voice that slashed the silence

Now the first line is obviously porn, although it’s just a text link, but What the heck does that text mean? Is it tracking information? Does random English like that entice me to click the link and see the anime?

The rest of the spam is pretty interesting stuff, especially recently. Of course, it helps to put that into perspective.

My ISP flags spam messages by prefixing the word “SPAM” to each subject line. It’s pretty good at identifying such messages. Normally they wouldn’t be downloaded, but I changed the setting to download the messages and deal with them myself. The result is an interesting collection, but still good stuff compared to a decade ago.

The SPAM 10 years ago was terrible. it was more like the porn example above: Random text, dozens of links, some poor graphics. And it was shady stuff, as well: Cheap mortgages, life insurance, overseas prescription drugs, and lots of porn. Sometimes it would come in batches, say 70 duplicates of the same message.

Today the stuff flagged by my ISP as SPAM is actually well-done marketing. Unlike the ads I’ve subscribed to, they are services and products I don’t need or want, but they’re all pretty decent looking.

Some junk does filter in, occasionally. It makes me feel nostalgic.

I once received a spate of Russian spam. I have no idea what they were advertising, but it came in buckets. Today I’m getting some Arabic spam, but not as much as I once did. The Russian stuff still comes in, but it’s a lot more brief, just a few lines of text.

Overall, however, the volume of spam seems to have subsided and the quality improved. It’s not that I want spam, but I’m more tolerable of it.