Happy Birthday Spam

Primal · 04-12-2004, 02:27 PM

From CNET News

Quote:

On April 12, 1994, a pair of attorneys in Arizona launched a homemade marketing software program that forever changed the Internet.
Hoping to drum up some business, Laurence Canter dashed off a Perl script that flooded online message boards with an advertisement pitching the legal services of Canter & Siegel, the law firm he ran with his then wife, Martha Siegel.

The response was immediate and harsh, offering one of the loudest signals up to that point that unchecked marketing would not be tolerated in the new medium. Thousands of recipients registered their displeasure, and a new label for the burgeoning business of unsolicited mass Internet advertising was coined.

"Send coconuts and cans of Spam to Cantor & Co.," one outraged Usenet reader wrote amid the uproar that followed the Canter & Siegel message. "(Be sure to drop the can of Spam on its seam first.)"

Ten years after Web surfers began using the spam label to describe intrusive online marketing, junk e-mail has ballooned into an epidemic of massive proportions. But righteous anger over the problem has increasingly been replaced by resignation. With no effective solution in sight, many people now ruefully wonder whether the "Internet era" might more accurately be dubbed the "age of spam."

Ksyrup · 04-12-2004, 03:41 PM

"Send coconuts and cans of Spam to Cantor & Co..."

And that outraged usenet reader was none other than...Al Gore.

Fritz · 04-12-2004, 03:43 PM

Al GOre invented SPAM

SplitPersonality1 · 04-12-2004, 03:58 PM

Oh. that spam.

CHEMICAL SOLDIER · 04-12-2004, 06:55 PM

Dang! I thought this was about the type of Spam that clogged the arteries and made my insides tingle .

Mac Howard · 04-12-2004, 08:09 PM

I read the same article. What puzzles me is that in criticising spam no one ever mentions one of its worst aspects - the propogation of viruses.

Because I have an email address on my web site it's picked up by spammers. This morning there were 423 spam messages in my box. 37 of them held a virus attachment!!!

04-12-2004, 03:41 PM	#2
Ksyrup This guy has posted so much, his fingers are about to fall off. Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: In Absentia	"Send coconuts and cans of Spam to Cantor & Co..." And that outraged usenet reader was none other than...Al Gore. __________________ M's pitcher Miguel Batista: "Now, I feel like I've had everything. I've talked pitching with Sandy Koufax, had Kenny G play for me. Maybe if I could have an interview with God, then I'd be served. I'd be complete."

04-12-2004, 03:43 PM	#3
Fritz Lethargic Hooligan Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: hello kitty found my wallet at a big tent revival and returned it with all the cash missing	Al GOre invented SPAM __________________ donkey, donkey, walk a little faster

04-12-2004, 06:55 PM	#5
CHEMICAL SOLDIER College Starter Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Henderson, Nevada	Dang! I thought this was about the type of Spam that clogged the arteries and made my insides tingle . __________________ Toujour Pret

04-12-2004, 08:09 PM	#6
Mac Howard Sick as a Parrot Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Surfers Paradise, Australia	I read the same article. What puzzles me is that in criticising spam no one ever mentions one of its worst aspects - the propogation of viruses. Because I have an email address on my web site it's picked up by spammers. This morning there were 423 spam messages in my box. 37 of them held a virus attachment!!! __________________ Mac Howard - a Pom in Paradise

04-12-2004, 03:58 PM	#4
SplitPersonality1 College Benchwarmer Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Grafton, WI	Oh. that spam.

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