a generic term for any data file that contains sampled sound. Generally you will need an appropriate program to play sounds for each format. Typical formats on the Internet are: .wav - a format developed by Microsoft .snd - the standard sound format on Apple Macintosh .au - short for au dio file, au is the standard format on Unix machines and in the Java language. Spam - unsolicited email, quite a large problem on the internet today. The real problem with spam is that the sender of the email does not have to pay any costs to do this, but rather passes on the cost to ISPs who must pay in the form of the computer time and bandwidth required to send these "junk emails."