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AnchorDesk

David Coursey
Junk e-mail vs. canned meat: What's in a name?

David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Monday, July 7, 2003
TalkBack!Add your opinion
I'm quite ready to answer the "What did you do over the holiday?" questions that follow every long weekend. I can tell my coworkers that over the Fourth of July, to celebrate freedom, I fed some spam to the fire gods.

And then my friends and I ate the spam. Or make that SPAM, the capital letters used here to distinguish the canned meat product from unsolicited commercial e-mail (aka UCE). It's an important distinction because it's ending up in the courts.

Top-rated spam fighters
There are all kinds of products that promise to filter out unwanted commercial e-mail. Here are the three that ZDNet reviewers like most, in order of preference:
Hormel, which manufactures SPAM, doesn't like the way some companies are using its brand to describe their, well, anti-spam products. Hormel is suing a company that calls itself SpamArrest. If I were iHateSpam! or any of several other products and services, I'd be concerned. (SpamNet, anyone?)

THE SPAM PEOPLE are not without a sense of humor. If you and I refer to UCE as spam, that's cool with them. They say doing so doesn't detract from the value of their trademark. But they allege that SpamArrest does.

According to Hormel's Web site, "Use of the term 'spam' was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of 'spam, spam, spam...' in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet."

People past a certain age may now stop singing along.

Hormel does not "object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lowercase letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters."

INTERESTINGLY, Hormel says the use of the slang term doesn't effect the strength of its trademark. Its lawyers cite a federal court case involving the Star Wars  trademark owned by LucasFilms. Lucas wanted the White House and others to stop using the name to describe the Strategic Defense Initiative, better known as, well, Star Wars.

The court found that such slang usage did not weaken the trademark and refused to stop its use. Hormel has other examples as well: Mickey Mouse, used to describe something unsophisticated; Teflon, used to describe President Reagan; and Cadillac, used to denote something as being high quality (as in, "It's the Cadillac of...").

For their part, the SpamArrest folks say this whole issue amounts to legal mystery meat and that they are doing nothing wrong. The case will end up being heard in a Washington D.C. court that specializes in trademark issues.

I think the SPAM people have a point here. I never thought the reference was to the Monty Python bit, but just to something that everyone seems to have eaten but no one seems to like.

EXCEPT ME, of course. I like SPAM. So did Uncle Joe Stalin, who considered it a wonderful meal when it was sent the starving Russian people during World War II. SPAM holds a place of honor from its role in WWII and Korea, not to mention the breakfast plate of many an American, sidled up next to a couple of eggs over easy.

As for the legal action, I'd hate to see a day when some kid asks, "Why did they name a canned meat after junk e-mail?" I'd hate to see the meaning of SPAM and spam become so co-mingled that the meat product's trademark is damaged. After all, what did SPAM do to deserve all this?

So over the weekend my guests and I drank a toast to SPAM and then dropped slices of it onto the grill to make SPAM burgers. As it sizzled, we imagined all that junk e-mail being sent to its death, perhaps along with the people who sent it. And as a special way of honoring the people who send spam, I used not the SPAM made from ham but the kind made from turkey.

Yes, I know the bird deserves better treatment. But "turkey" isn't a trademark. And "SPAM" is.

What do you think? Is Hormel wrong to go after companies that use the word "spam" in their product names? What's your favorite way to block unwanted commercial e-mail? TalkBack to me! 

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