Just Another Blog
Friday, March 22, 2002
 
A Brief History of Spam

Check out the story in the right margin. It is really more interesting than the article itself. It begins:
Next month will be the eighth anniversary of the notorious spam attack on Usenet by Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, immigration lawyers who were among the first spammers on the Internet--and arguably the most reviled. The duo blanketed thousands of the Net's oldest discussion groups, known as newsgroups, with messages touting a "Green Card Lottery."


The postings incited outrage in the newsgroup community, at the time comprising more than 6,500 groups on topics ranging from C+ programming to medieval English literature. Distaste for the relatively new practice prompted tens of thousands of people globally to clog the in-box of Canter and Siegel's company with hate mail. The crush of e-mail caused the company's Internet service provider to buckle, and Canter and Siegel were forced to sign on with another ISP. Despite the backlash, they claimed no remorse and sought to advertise their services again.