anti-spam volunteers due to the failure of some internet service providers and websites to help implement anti-spam filters—spam and spam-canceling messages were estimated by Lewis to make up 80% of Usenet traffic at the time. However, predictions that Usenet would suffer a meltdown from spam traffic occurred only on a smaller scale, as some servers and small ISPs failing to use filters crashed. There was also a lack of "solidarity" between all volunteers, and "Cosmo Roadkill", one of their most active, continued to cancel spam regardless. The boycott was declared on March 31 by Lewis, and ended after two weeks. Lewis said that the boycott helped raise awareness towards spam and pressured smaller ISPs and newsgroup administrators into implementing filters. Some alt. newsgroups may have been lost. Lewis co-founded CAUCE Canada, the first organization of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), alongside John Levine and Neil Schwartzman on November 30, 1998, and was later its treasurer. He was a member of the despamming group Cabal Network Security/SPUTUM. References Bibliography External links Transcripts Request for Comments Archived Usenet FAQs and posts Chris Lewis' Spam Thresholds FAQ How to become a Usenet site (Chris Lewis, October 27, 2002) "Help! I've been spammed! What do I do?" (maintained by Greg Byshenk) The Golden Mallet Award Canadian consultants Nortel employees Living people Usenet people Year of birth missing (living people)