thumb|Linford in 2023
Stephen John "Steve" Linford (born 12 December 1956) is a British entrepreneur and anti-spam campaigner best known for founding The Spamhaus Project.
Linford was born in London, England, in 1956. His family moved to Rome, Italy, where Steve attended St. George's British International School. After leaving college to pursue a music career, Linford made his living writing music and playing with Italian, German and English rock groups. For a number of years he was under contract to Italy's 'GM' record label and worked on film music with composer Ennio Morricone
Today his project's technologies are used by an estimated three-quarters of the world's internet networks and serve over 3.1 billion email users. He is CEO of the Spamhaus organisation, a group of several companies based in the UK and Andorra working in communications filter technology and cybersecurity. Since then he has spoken on spam and cybersecurity at government hearings, the European Parliament and the UN. In 2004 he was given the Internet Hero Award by the British ISP Association ISPA. In 2005 he was nominated for Outstanding Contribution to the UK Technology Industry.