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How the Spam Industry is Sustained

Posted by samzenpus on from the please-stop-clicking dept.

mOoZik writes "The BBC has an interesting article about spam and why it's still around. According to a survey, nearly 1/3 of users have clicked on spam messages and 1/10 have bought products advertised therein. "If no-one responded to junk e-mail and didn't buy products sold in this way, then spam would be as extinct as the dinosaurs.""

1 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, there's an easy way... by bitkid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    to educate users. If somebody signs up for a free-mail account (could work for ISPs in general as well), they are automatically send a couple of fake spams. If any link in the spam-emails is clicked, the account of the user will be closed (with an educational warning message). That will teach them...

    Credit: Some MS guy I talked to. Unfortunately Hotmail-management was kinda opposed to that idea...