“It’s not every day people bet their jobs on the effectiveness of a law–let alone an antispam law. Many U.S. states have already enacted such e-mail laws, and spam keeps flooding in.

But that’s exactly what Larry Lessig, a Stanford University law professor and one of the most prominent liberal voices online, has done. A few months ago, Lessig made an unusual wager: If Congress enacts an antispam law that offers bounties for the reporting of spammers, and the law fails to “substantially reduce the level of spam,” he will resign from his dream job at a top law school.

Lessig is either extremely reckless or incredibly confident. He has asked me to be the judge of whether such a law proves effective in reducing the deluge of unsolicited e-mail that’s clogging our in-boxes, snarling mail servers and driving Internet service providers to distraction. I’ve accepted.” — Declan McCullagh, CNET