Laurence A. Canter (born June 24, 1953) and Martha S. Siegel (born April 9, 1948) were partners and spouses in a firm of lawyers who committed the first massive commercial Usenet spamming on April 12, 1994. They were not the first Usenet spammers, but some consider them pioneers in the modern global field of ad spamming.

Green card spam

In early 1994, Canter and Siegel contracted with Leigh Benson to write a program to advertise on Usenet, but Benson was unable to write their software. In April 1994 they used a Perl script written by a programmer known only as "Jason", to generate advertisements for their service of enrolling people in a "green card lottery". This US government program allocates a limited quantity of "green cards" to certain non-citizens, allowing them to stay and work in the country. The two lawyers offered to do the necessary paperwork for a fee.

On May 5, 1994, the couple established a company called Cybersell.

  • Ben Delisle, Green Card Lottery – Last Call – 1994 Usenet post giving background on Canter and Siegel
  • Wyn Hilty, How The Web Was Lost, 1996
  • Ray Everett-Church, "The Spam That Started It All", Wired magazine, April 13, 1999
  • Sharael Feist, "The father of modern spam speaks", CNET News, March 26, 2002
  • John M. Moran, "The Spam Heard Around The World", Hartford Courant, June 30, 2002
  • Neil Swidey, "Spambusters", The Boston Globe, October 10, 2003