A U.S. congresswoman plans to introduce an antispam bill that would pay a bounty to some who report spammers, and Stanford University law professor and cyberlaw author Lawrence Lessig said he's so sure the bill will cut the amount of spam sent that he'll quit his job if it doesn't.

Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from San Jose, California, announced her plans to introduce the Restrict and Eliminate Delivery of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (REDUCE) Spam Act during an event for Stanford law students in Stanford, California, Monday. The bill, similar in some ways to a bill introduced by two U.S. senators earlier this month, introduces as a new wrinkle a bounty for the first person to report a spam offender, with a reward of 20 percent of the civil fine levied by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against the spammer.

The bounty for spammers is an idea that Lessig has been advancing for several months, and in January he publicly bet his job on the effectiveness of a bill that would offer a bounty. Lofgren's bill is "an example of be careful what you wish for," Lessig said Monday. The bet would get Lessig's detractors to "rally for this proposal," he added.

With a civil fine of up to $10 per offending piece of e-mail, the potential bounty for those who report spam violations could be in the thousands of dollars, a spokesman for Lofgren said. Fines could be in the "magnitude of the thousands," the spokesman said.

The bill could be effective "because prosecutors have better things to do than tracking down spammers," Lessig said. "It will soon be not worth it to send out 10,000 human growth hormone e-mails a day."

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