8th Anniversary - Birth of Internet Spam Speak with Father of Spam

Eight years ago Laurence Canter created the first Internet email marketing campaign and a furor that has lasted til this day (it was Time's cover story at the time). April 12 is the 8th anniversary of what today is called Spam. Canter, now known as the Father of Spam, is speaking out on the impact of that first Spam in today's controversial Internet marketing world.

8th Anniversary of Internet Spam -- the now legendary Green Card Spam" of April 12, 1994.

Background

The first spam was actually done by lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel. On April 12, 1994, they advertised that they would prepare the documents for the INS lottery, which permitted non-residents of the U.S. to enter a lottery for a green card. Their advertisement was posted across the Internet. And the Internet was outraged.

In 1994, roughly one year after the World Wide Web came into use, the Internet was primarily populated by academics, scientists and students. The online community responded with a vengeance. Netizens sent thousands of "pings" and e- mails to the Internet service provider used by the spammers, crashing their system repeatedly in retaliation.

The entire incident created an uproar in major publications and television news programs -- and the debate on spam continues to this day. Canter and Siegel were billed as "The Most Hated Couple in Cyberspace" by a Time Magazine cover story because they were the first in the world to utilize the vast selling power of the Internet on a global basis.

April 12th will mark the 8th Anniversary of that historical event.

Since then, Laurence Canter, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has developed several financial software packages, including the recent highly acclaimed software for Stock Option Analysis called Option Crawler.