Did you know that the very first spam email was sent out in 1978?
Today, more than 70% of all emails sent are spam.
Email spam isn’t just annoying; it causes real damage damage — and it’s more effective than you might than. Spam email can damage your computer with malware contained in links or attachments, which can can damage your computer or harvest sensitive personal information to send to hackers. Spam also includes phishing attempts, with emails posing as legitimate websites in order to trick the recipient into revealing passwords or other sensitive information. Then there’s the famous Nigerian scam, which actually dates back hundreds of years.
Who sent that very first email scam? Was it a practiced “Nigerian” con artist who was an early adopter of email, and saw its potential to pull the same trick that had been successful on so many others for hundreds of years?
Actually, the first spam email wasn’t a scam; just questionable marketing. It was sent by Gary Thuerk, marketing manager of the now-defunct Digital Equipment Corp., an early computer manufacturer. Today, Thuerk thinks of himself as the father of e-marketing, but others have given him a title that’s not so complimentary: the father of spam.
Back in May of 1978, Thuerk was an early adopter of email and proponent of ARPANET, the predecessor of the World Wide Web. When Digital came out with a new computer model, Thuerk sent an advertisement via mass email to 400 Digital customers.
Though Gary Thuerk’s reputation is less than flattering today, in his work he did help to usher in a new era of computer technology and popularize the use of email and the ARPANET.
Thuerk wasn’t so lucky in his legacy, but many of the tech geniuses below made out much better… though some of their contributions were just as questionable. The good intentions of those who invented the pop-up ad and captchas are a little difficult to believe today, but hindsight’s always 20/20. Check out the tech geniuses and their unfortunate contributions to today’s World Wide Web below.
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