As for Thuerk, for the rest of his life he seemed to take some pride in his small moment of notoriety; he told Computerworld in 2007 that he prefers to call himself "the father of e-marketing" and also made himself available for inspirational speeches. At one point, he argued that he shouldn't be blamed for the plague of spam. "You don't blame the Wright Brothers for every flying problem."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 663