History does not repeat but it certainly rhymes. Almost 30 years back:

"...who posted the first massive commercial Usenet spam on April 12, 1994. This event came shortly after the National Science Foundation lifted its unofficial ban on commercial speech on the Internet, and it marks the end of the Net's early period in some views, when the original netiquette could still be enforced."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel