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The Economics Of Spamming
Shardleton writes "What kind of an idiot would buy penis-enlargement pills? Even more idiotic, who would buy them from a spammer? Apparently LOTS of people, according to this article at Wired. The operators of a spamvertised order site left their customer logs exposed. There were 6,000 orders for the pills since July 4. Sayeth Wired: "Do the math and you begin to understand why spammers are willing to put up with the wrath of spam recipients, Internet service providers and federal regulators.""
Offering e-mail recipients "free pornography" if they download a software program. The program often provides the pornography, but only after the user's computer dials a 1-900 number to an overseas location, racking up hundreds of dollars in phone charges.
"Pump and dump" stock schemes, in which a spammer sends e-mails touting a certain stock and encourages people to buy it. The stock's value goes up, and spammers sell it at a profit.
Accepting payment for an item without sending it. Spammers bet that someone buying Viagra or pills for the enlargement of body parts would be too embarrassed to call the police or Better Business Bureau.
Of course, if there was ever need for proof that there's a sucker born every minute, just check out this quote from the Wired article:
John.
Suddenly, telemarketing doesn't seem so bad. At least my household never got phone calls from perverts offering pics of underaged teens, unlicensed pharmacy ads, etc. And to top it off, telemarketing is a manpower intensive operation whereas one guy can send out a billion e-mail letters on his own. At least telemarketing provides jobs.
For me it comes down to to the freedom of speech issue -- I've always been told that if you can't handle free speech you don't agree with you obviously can't handle free speech -- and I suppose just because something irritates me doesn't mean that the greater good would be served by silencing that something.
Admittedly, I didn't RTFA.. But, as someone who is vehement about free speech myself I can tell you that I don't consider SPAM as free speech. It's not free speech if you have no way to avoid it. Sure, if I don't like what someone's saying on TV, I can change the channel. I don't have the option of 'changing the channel' on a spammer.
I agree, everyone should have the right to speak their mind, no matter how unpopular or controversial. However, no one has the right to force anyone else to read, listen to, or otherwise hold captive an audience - and thats exactly what spammers are doing.
And don't tell me I can simply hit the delete button - thats not something I should have to do. Just like if someone's making harassing phonecalls to me, I can call the police and press charges. There needs to be a similar mechanism for SPAM, preferrably something involving rope, stakes, honey and a mound of Texas fireants.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Because they are actually delivering the pills, they aren't breaking the laws. It's legitimate advertising, kinda. I mean, you take the pill, see attractive member of the preferred sex, and your penis enlarges by many inches.
Because of weird legal loopholes, spammers can legitimately email you by way of lists they got from other companies that once got your email because you agreed to let them sell it when you clicked "OK" without reading the entirety of the 5 page privacy policy.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
If you read about most spammers (i.e. Ralsky, Hardigree, etc.) the one thing that sticks out about all of them is that they're generally not very intelligent. Their choice is to spam and live in the million dollar house, or go back to McDonald's and the trailer park. Obviously, they're not going back to the trailer park without a fight.
It's obvious that they're making money; how else is Ralsky going to afford his house?
Do you have ESP?
You HAVE to be kidding.
You could sell a canned vacuum this way. Enough people will bite at a product if it is marketed correctly.
Look at the "pet rocks" that sold in the 70's.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
The president of a California firm that sells airplane parts and is active in the local Rotary Club gave out his American Express card number...
you really believe these people purchased this shit? these people's credit cards were stolen! ever get emails that resemble ebay's account page or aol's billing or some other fake bullshit thats trying to snatch your credit card numbers.. those things fool a lot more people than "make your penis huge" sells penis pills
what do you think gets done with all those stolen cc's.. the bastard turns around and signs them up for penis pills, porno sitesm, etc whatever gets the comission. sending out a buttload of spam to the same people that your stealing ccs from just obfuscates things to help cover your tracks. this is the real shady shit thats going on with spam.. not penis mail that people are actually buying, people are getting ripped off!
bite my glorious golden ass.
First, the "money pumped back into the economy" statement. You think that the customers would have burnt that, or put it in their matress if they hadn't bought swedish-made penis pumps? I doubt it. They'd have bought the next product advertised on the shopping network, or sold at the checkout at Walmart.
Second, the "free speech" issue. If you lie to my employees to get them to stamp your mail with my bulk-mailing code it's not free speech, it's fraud. I won't shut you down because of what your mail says, but because you want me to foot the bill for it. Also, your right to free speech doesn't obligate me to listen. If you have to lie about the subject and sender to get people to listen, it's likely they don't want to hear you.
Your right to free speech does not obligate me, as a private citizen, to provide you a forum in which to exercise that right.
Thus, a spammer's free speech rights have no bearing on my inbox.
I'd always hoped that people stupid enough to order spam-advertised items would be too stupid to operate a computer, nevermind use email software.
Apparently, there is a small but significant range in which you're smart enough to use a computer, but too dumb to know what to do with it.
Once I have this information, I would like to give it to Spamhaus or some other organization, preferably one with an advertising budget, and have them do a spot on tv explaining the dangers of spam.
Maybe the government should do a public service announcement about it. You see, the majority of people who buy this crap are not internet savvy, but you better believe they are television savvy.
I think the FTC would be much better off spending its money to educate potential victims of spam than it would going after the actual spammers.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
In principle, I agree with you. But, on the one hand, you argue that
if I don't like what someone's saying on TV, I can change the channel
implying that speech on television is "free speech" (since you have a way to avoid it). However, when refering to email, you write
don't tell me I can simply hit the delete button - thats not something I should have to do.
Does this imply that you shouldn't have to pick up the remote control and change the channel -- that the television should just read your mind? After all, in both cases (watching television and reading email) you are choosing to do so, and you are choosing to focus on a single instance (channel or particular email). If you don't like that particular instance, you either (a) change instances by using the remote control or the next/delete button, or (b) change mediums by turning the television or the email application off.
What's the difference again? Like I said, I agree with you in principle, but your logical argument here on what constitutes "free speech" is weak.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I assume that he's a spammer not because his dad was Jewish, but because he lost all credibility as a neo-Nazi when his fellow travelers found him out. Once that happened, he needed a job in which integrity, humanity, and credibility are not required attributes. Hence...he became a spammer. The comment is more of an insult to neo-Nazis than Jewish people...how can anyone claim that the neo-Nazis are the cream of the gene pool (as they claim) if all that unemployed neo-Nazis can do is disperse spam? The comment should be taken not as an insult to Jews but as an insult to single-celled life everywhere.
I used to work for a small software company where most of our sales were made through direct mail. I think our gross sales peaked at about $2 million one year while I was working there in the mid-90's.
Each direct mail piece sent to a prospect costs hard cash to send, for printing, postage, labor and mailing list rental. Yet it was our experience that a response rate of 0.5% was sufficient to yield a profit.
Once you have identified a profitable offer and a mailing list that's rich with customers who respond to direct mail, you have a license to print money. That's why you probably each of you reading this receive two or three pieces of direct mail every day.
The following two comments I posted at Kuro5hin discuss this in great detail:
- The Importance of Advertising to Business
- Direct mail is very scientifically targeted
Now, if you consider that the cost of sending spam is insignificant when the spammer can hijack an open relay, you will understand that spam will never stop until purchasers stop responding to spam.Simply installing filters on your own machine won't help. The people who purchase sexual enhancement products over the Internet don't know from spam filters.
I think the end to spam will come only when every ISP and mail hosting service installs filters that are enabled by default. Only then will the response rate of spam be reduced to the point that it's no longer economical to send it.
I think it's likely the day will come when ISPs will be forced to install filters that cannot be disabled. Possibly this will be ordered by various national governments.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I always thought that people gullible/uneducated enough to fall for spam would also be too uneducated to run a computer well enough to handle the email in the first place.
Guess we've done too good a job of making them easy to use...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Well in my day we had pencils, paper, slide rules and APL. Shame that IBM effectively killed it by taking it propriatary.
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Ah, the good old days of waking up, eating a cold lump of poison, going to work in mine. .
Ummmmmm, nevermind.
Feynman was always highly visually oriented. It seems almost natural that he would have developed both useful and unique methods of notation. I'm not sure the current state of academia is suitable for the development of his like. In fact I'm not sure the state of academia at the time was suitable for the development of his like and he really got a bit lucky with the Manhatten project. Luck that benefited us all.
KFG