![\"Courtesy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4f19d6c96c9e3224cba2ce45de3ad2d0.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nNEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
Laurence Canter, along with his then-wife, Martha Siegel, became infamous among early users of the internet after they sent the first commercial spam to drum up business for their law firm<\/p>\n
Incensed with the message, others bombarded the couple with death threats and obscene phone calls and shut down their law firm’s phones using auto-dialing software<\/p>\n
Today, over 46% of emails are spam, according to the data gathering platform Statista<\/p>\n
On any given day Laurence Canter peers into his email folder and, just like the rest of us, catches himself grumbling over the countless unsolicited messages for bogus job offers, free giveaways and sham alerts from banks clogging his inbox.<\/p>\n
But unlike the billions of other web-using inhabitants of planet Earth, the 72-year-old Canter feels an ever-so-slight twinge of culpability for all that digital junk that rockets across the internet each day.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody gets tons of it,\u201d laments the former attorney who \u2014 along with his ex-wife, Martha Siegel, also a lawyer \u2014 sent out ads promoting their firm on an early incarnation of the World Wide Web in 1994.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s too bad,” Canter adds. “Am I responsible for that? Only in the most indirect way … If we hadn\u2019t done it, there\u2019s no question somebody else would have.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Courtesy Laurence Canter <\/p>\n
Canter holding a Trivia Pursuit card that references his connection to spam.<\/p>\n
In the three decades since the Phoenix-based immigration attorneys sent that first mass commercial email blast to Usenet groups (the internet\u2019s early discussion forums) advertising their service of enrolling people in the government\u2019s “green card lottery\u201d program, the internet is awash in the annoying messages that the couple helped pioneer.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the data gathering platform Statista estimated that 46% of all emails were spam, which works out to 160 billion emails sent each day.<\/p>\n
Back in the internet\u2019s early days of the mid-1990s, the so-called \u201cinformation superhighway\u201d was a seemingly kinder and mellower place. Advertising was discouraged and even banned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe internet was pretty young at the time,\u201d Canter says. \u201cIn fact, I think it was the National Science Foundation was still debating whether commercial activity should even be allowed on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
All that changed on April 12, 1994, when Canter let loose what was has been described as the first online mega-spam \u2014 with the subject \u201cGreen Card Lottery\u2014Final One?\u201d \u2014 to more than 5,500 Usenet discussion forums.<\/p>\n
The blowback from the online community was swift. The couple quickly began receiving death threats and obscene phone calls. Their law firm\u2019s phones, voicemail systems and fax machines were tied up for days due to nonstop calls from auto-dialing software.<\/p>\n
Their internet provider terminated the firm\u2019s account after receiving so many complaints from netizens that it caused the company’s computers to crash over a dozen times.<\/p>\n
“It was quite surprising,\u201d says Canter, who estimates the ad brought in between $100,000 and $200,000 worth of business. \u201cIt was a [relatively] narrow group. But they thought what we did was inappropriate … and were really angry at us because they thought we were destroying the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Canter's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0d33a61cc42294d211967fa7cafb1928.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Canter’s past exploits were referenced in a question several years ago on an episode of ‘Jeopardy’<\/p>\n
Their cyber transgression also landed them an inordinate amount of media attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was amazed by it,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe made the front page of The New York Times with a headline that I think said, \u2018Gasp, an ad in cyberspace.\u2019 \u201d (That’s true<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Besides anger over the couple\u2019s apparent violation of the internet\u2019s unwritten code of decorum, many were incensed that the couple was charging would-be green card seekers to perform a service that was essentially free. In reality, all it took to enroll in the government\u2019s lottery program was to send in a postcard with your name and address on it.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnically that\u2019s true,\u201d says Canter. \u201cBut that\u2019s also true with every service. Look at having your taxes done. There\u2019s nothing that says you have to use a CPA to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n As the controversy raged on, the couple remained boldly unrepentant.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat [that first spam] did was open up the internet as a big marketing opportunity at a very low cost,\u201d Canter says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t cost anything to put [our ad] together and reach who knows how many millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n Within months, the couple parlayed their notoriety into a deal with HarperCollins for the 1995 book How To Make A Fortune on the Information Superhighway: Everyone\u2019s Guerilla Guide to Marketing on the Internet and Other On-line Services.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the internet world started bombarding HarperCollins with all sorts of threats about publishing it,\u201d says Canter. \u201cAnd if you\u2019re a book publisher, nothing makes you happier than that.\u201d<\/p>\n Tech writers of the day were less than thrilled. In a June 1994 article with the headline “Pair Outrages Internet Users\u2014Again,” The San Jose Mercury News bashed the couple for their literary efforts.<\/p>\n “For regular users of the Internet,” the reporter wrote, “it’s as if Godzilla published a textbook on urban planning.”<\/p>\n But time marched on. And by 1996, the couple had divorced and, four years later, Siegel died.<\/p>\n “We kind of went off in different ways,\u201d says Canter, who moved to Northern California and began working in software development. In 1997, the Tennessee Supreme Court disbarred him in 1997 for offenses not related to his green card spam.<\/p>\n The Trivia Pursuit card that mentions Canter in a question.<\/p>\n \u201cIt never bothered me,\u201d Canter says, admitting that he doesn\u2019t miss practicing law. \u201cMy problem, even today, has always been that I don\u2019t know what I want to do when I grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the self-described “animal lover” (who owns five miniature horses) has finally found his calling with his latest online venture \u2014 known as doggylips.com<\/a> \u2014 where, together with his wife, Patty, he sells digital artwork of dogs emblazoned on shirts and mugs.<\/p>\n These days, Canter admits that he’s saddened when he ponders how spam \u2014 especially in the form of email scams designed to trick recipients into handing over personal information or downloading malicious software \u2014 has wormed its way into our everyday life.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s become a very scary thing,\u201d adds Canter, who says he has had relatives lose \u201csignificant\u201d amounts of money after being tricked into revealing their banking information as a result of replying to spam email<\/a> from scammers.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it should scare everybody … I don\u2019t think I [bear] any kind of responsibility towards that \u2014 but maybe I did open the door a little bit for things like that to ultimately be able to happen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Canter admits he still finds it \u201camusing\u201d whenever he comes across some online reference describing him as \u201cthe father of spam.\u201d<\/p>\n Not long ago, a friend sent him a card from the board game Trivial Pursuit with the question \u201cWhat did lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel offer to help clients obtain through a U.S. lottery, in widely reviled Usenet spam?” (The correct answer, of course, is \u201ca green card.”)<\/p>\n But the thrill of being included in a board game that has sold more than 100 million copies pales compared to the rush Canter experienced several years ago when he happened to catch an episode of Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and was dumbfounded to hear Alex Trebek ask, \u201cWho is Laurence Canter?\u201d<\/p>\n He laughs when he recalls that none of the contestants had a clue who he was, saying, \u201cI wasn\u2019t all that famous.\u201d<\/p>\n If nothing else, Canter seems to have a sense of humor over that distant chapter of his life.<\/p>\n When informed that a number of the emails he sent this reporter ended up in his spam folder instead of his inbox, Canter didn’t miss a beat.<\/p>\n “That seems appropriate,” he quipped. “Got to hate whoever is responsible for spam!”<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/f9da6680ea24e40e216132f1d43aff79.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n