spam history

Roger Ebert, in addition to having been one of the best movie reviewers out there, is known to me, and to many other spam fighters out there, for having coined “The Boulder Pledge” way back in 1996. The Boulder Pledge is as follows: “Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.” In other words, if you don’t like spam, make sure you don’t buy things from spam, to help minimize the chances of a spammer’s success.  Bill Weinman explains more context around the Boulder Pledge here, and shares Roger’s original column promoting the pledge, from way back in the day. Enjoy.

I’m not 100% sure of the exact day that I first posted to this blog, but based on what I can find in my own notes and archives, I probably published my first post on August 26, 2001. So, I’m going to call that the birthdate of Spam Resource, and that means that today is the twentieth anniversary of Spam Resource.(Spam Resource circa 2001-2003)Wow, it’s been a heck of a ride. I guess that time flies when you’re … sitting still, quietly blogging about spam and email.Though Blogger did technically exist in 2001, Spam Resource wasn’t moved to the Blogger platform until 2006. Prior to that move, it was all hand-coded HTML flat files with lots of tables. For a period, it was even an online software store — my employer at the time held a contest to try to drive extra online software sales — and I was one of the…