Pejorative term for an internet service provider that permits or even
encourages {spam} mailings from its systems. The plural is
spamhausen. There is a web page devoted to tracking spamhausen.
The most notorious of the spamhausen was Sanford Wallace's Cyber
Promotions Inc., shut down by a lawsuit on 16 October 1997. The
anniversary of the shutdown is celebrated on Usenet as Spam Freedom
Day, but lesser imitators of the Spamford still infest various murky
corners of the net. Since prosecution of spammers became routine
under the junk-fax laws and statues specifically targeting spam,
spamhausen have declined in relative importance; today, hit-and-run
attacks by spammers using {relay rape} and {throwaway account}s on
reputable ISPs seem to account for most of the flow.
[glossary]