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The Economics Of Spamming

Posted by timothy on from the will-build-a-better-idiot dept.

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.""

1 of 641 comments (clear)

  1. Mod Parent Insightful! by Renderer+of+Evil · · Score: 0, Troll
    In short, SomethingAwful's operators specifically encouraged criminal activities and abuse of the network. Reportedly, readers of the flooded USENET group did the right thing in response -- rather than counterattacking with a flood of their own, they reported the criminal activity to the offending user's sites (including universities).
    This is exactly what happened. The actions of SomethingAwful are downright criminal.