Spam is the bane of anyone’s email account, and we all have one man to thank for it.
Email spam isn’t just annoying- it's constant and seemingly unavoidable.
According to Statista, in 2023, 46 percent of all emails were spam.
Unsolicited offers, advice and opportunities can feel like something is being pushed on you.
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Kind of like those leaflets you get through your front door that contains little more than kindling for a bonfire, and not much else.
While you may not have considered how it began and where it came from, there’s one man who started it all, and he’s finally speaking out about it.
Laurence Canter probably wasn’t aware of just how far his idea would take off when he sent the first ever spam email to users across the US.
The 72-year-old, who is a former attorney, sent it off with his wife at the time, Martha Siegel, to promote their firm on the World Wide Web in 1994.
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“Everybody gets tons of it,” he told People.
“And that’s too bad," Canter added.
Having had many years to reflect on his email, he went on to reveal what he regrets the most.
At the time, advertising via email wasn’t something that was encouraged, and at some point, it was banned.
“The internet was pretty young at the time,” Canter said. “In fact, I think it was the National Science Foundation was still debating whether commercial activity should even be allowed on it.”
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But in 1994, Canter decided he would try to get business for a lottery his law firm was running, and soon, he was inundated with hate mail from respondents.
With the subject line, ‘Green Card Lottery—Final One?’, he sent off the email that was advertising their service to enrol people in the government’s ‘green card lottery’.
This would mark the start of spam.
“Am I responsible for that? Only in the most indirect way ... If we hadn’t done it, there’s no question somebody else would have,” claimed Canter.
His email reached 5,500 Usenet (early forum discussions) users and people immediately started to send the couple death threats and phone calls.
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At one point, they even had to switch off their firm’s phones, when the voicemail systems and fax machines were receiving constant calls via an auto-dialling software.
Their internet provider closed the firm’s account after receiving so many complaints from people, and their computers would crash due to the volume.
"It was quite surprising,” said Canter.
However, it wasn’t all bad as he admitted the email brought in between $100,000 and $200,000 of business.
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He and his ex-wife also wrote a book with HarperCollins about getting rich, which saw mass outrage.
But Canter took it in his stride.
“It never bothered me,” Canter said.
But he is saddened by how spam has become the new normal, and it started with him and his ex.
"It’s become a very scary thing,” said Canter, who admitted relatives have lost money through being scammed via spam emails, having been tricked out of their bank details.
“I think it should scare everybody ... I don’t think I [bear] any kind of responsibility towards that — but maybe I did open the door a little bit for things like that to ultimately be able to happen,” he said.
Canter went on to say he finds it ‘amusing’ whenever sees a story about himself online.
A friend even sent him a card from the board game Trivial Pursuit that referenced his controversy.
It said: “What did lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel offer to help clients obtain through a U.S. lottery, in widely reviled Usenet spam?"
His spam email was even on the show Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, but people didn’t know who he was.
As for the hate he’s received, he calls it 'appropriate’ to ‘hate whoever is responsible for spam’.
Topics: Technology, US News
Britt Jones