Millions of unsolicited commercial e-mails are being sent over the internet every single day – and this got me wondering, what are some of the real life equivalents to online spam that we are all familiar with?

Some people consider television and radio commercials to be spam – after all, who wants to sit through an advertisement when they could be enjoying their favorite show or listening to some music. Unfortunately, however, spam laws haven’t been made to reach into the word of commercial media; although maybe it should be.

We all receive spam in our online inbox, but what about the junk mail that is sent to your house? These unsolicited messages are just as useless as online spam, and they can be just as annoying when you have to sort through several of them in order to find a letter that you want. Indeed, unwanted junk mail sent to your physical home address counts as spam in the eyes of many.

Telephone spam is perhaps the most annoying form of all. There you are, sitting down to enjoy a nice meal when the phone rings. You answer it, only to be confronted with a voice recording trying to push a product or service. Sometimes these recordings may even instruct you to call another number, which many times this is nothing more than a pushy salesperson (see below).

Pushy salespeople can be considered a form of spam, as well – especially when they are trying to sell you things that you really don’t need or want. Unfortunately there is no anti spam server or spam filter to get rid of it, but in the end all you can do is ignore them; unlike internet spam, live salespeople will give up on you after a while.