EmailElectronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving digital messages using electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the digital version of, or counterpart to, mail (hence e- + mail).Terms of serviceTerms of service, also known as terms of use and terms and conditions, are the legal agreements between service providers and service consumers. The person must agree to abide by the terms of service in order to use the offered service. Terms of service can also be merely a disclaimer, especially regarding the use of websites.
GIFThe Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a bitmapimage format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987. Compared with the later WebP format, GIF is limited to a palette of at most 256 colors per frame and only binary (on/off) transparency, whereas animated WebP supports 24-bit color with 8-bit alpha transparency and both lossy and lossless compression.
ARPANETThe Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.HTML emailHTML email is the use of a subset of HTML to provide formatting and semantic markup capabilities in email that are not available with plain text: Text can be linked without displaying a URL, or breaking long URLs into multiple pieces. Text is wrapped to fit the width of the viewing window, rather than uniformly breaking each line at 78 characters (defined in RFC 5322, which was necessary on older text terminals).
MalwareMalware (a portmanteau of malicious software) is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption or destruction to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or interfere with the user's computer security and privacy without their knowledge.
Spam (food)Spam (stylized in all caps) is a brand of lunch meat (processed canned pork and ham) made by Hormel Foods Corporation, an American multinational food processing company. It was introduced in the United States in 1937 and gained popularity worldwide after its use during World War II. As of July 5, 2022, Spam is sold in 48 countries, and trademarked in more than 100 countries, on 6 continents.
PhishingPhishing is a form of social engineering and a scam in which attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware. Phishing can be used for credential theft, session hijacking, malware delivery, or command execution. Some attacks transparently relay authentication to a legitimate site, allowing the attacker to capture credentials and authenticated sessions.Email attachmentAn email attachment is a computer file sent along with an email message. One or more files can be attached to any email message, and be sent along with it to the recipient. This is typically used as a simple method to share documents and images.
Attention theftAttention theft is a theory in economic sociology and psychology which describes situations in which marketers serve advertisements to consumers who have not consented to view them and who are given nothing in return. Perpetrators seek to distract targets' attention through the use of advertising content, thereby achieving a form of manipulation. Attention theft has been criticized as an example of unethical marketing.
European UnionThe European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. A supranational union with a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an estimated population of just under 452 million as of 2026, its member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around €18.802 trillion in 2025, accounting for approximately one sixth of global economic output.Domain Name System blocklistA Domain Name System blocklist, Domain Name System-based blackhole list, Domain Name System blacklist (DNSBL) or real-time blackhole list (RBL) is a service for operation of mail servers to perform a check via a Domain Name System (DNS) query whether a sending host's IP address is blacklisted for email spam. Most mail server software can be configured to check such lists, typically rejecting or flagging messages from such sites.
ExternalityImposed cost or benefit in economicsAir pollution from motor vehicles is an example of a negative externality. The costs of the air pollution for the rest of society is not compensated for by either the producers or users of motorized transport.In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.