Slashdot Mirror
Porn Dominates the Spam Battlefield
An anonymous reader writes "New York Times has published an article that explores the economics that control what type of spam shows up in your inbox. The study was done by CipherTrust and shows that porn spam is 280 times more effective than spam advertising pharmacy drugs. Paul Judge offered the following towards an explanation: 'If you look at some of the oldest and most successful forms of business on earth, they revolve around sex.'"
pron spam is 280 times more effective than spam advertising pharmacy drugs
I prefer the Combo ads, where it tries to sell you Viagra and shows you pictures of who you could use it on.
Snake oil is snake oil, but free boobies? PRICELESS
Seriously, is this news to anyone? All it takes to learn this is to flip on the TV to any station. Christ, even the local catholic church station. You'll notice they put the prettiest girl they have up on the tube. Why do you think that is?
Sex sells. I love it when they do this on religion stations especially.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I like the unsubstantiated side-bar claiming that porn spam had a 5.6% click-through rate. I suppose that's 5.6% of delivered spam? How could this possibly be measured? I'm not saying it can't be approximated but a sidebar and a couple of quotes are hardly sufficient evidence.
In a word... "duh".
What is going to grab anyone's attention more? "We ship quadraphexametaline to your door for a flat rate of $9.99 - click here to order" or "18 year old Mariana Gottemoff does immoral things with a bearclaw - click here to view"
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
simply filter the $ symbol, i did this at home and spam disappeared overnight never to return and as my company has no dealings with anyone using that currency it didnt stop any legit mail from getting through
now if only Gmail would let me do the same we will be onto a winner
I've gone blind and can't see my monitor. Plus my palm is too hairy to click the mouse.
Its not just the spam, dial my sig...
THIS SPACE FOR RENT Call 1-800-555-CARL
What about us poor souls who use the preview mode which only shows a couple of lines of text only? We miss out on the free pics because all we see is something like "Algorithm Leotard Temple Quantum Holiday FR3E P-0R.N!" (An actual line from my spam bin).
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
I must be too old, all I get are c 1 a l a s and v 1 @ g r 4 SPAM. Perhaps if I bought some, then I'd start getting porn spam so I could put my prescription to good use...
I have one email address that gets tons of spam everyday, here's a nice random grab (:
From: "Lauren Tom"
Subject: New and hot ladybo y see all of them
Date: Wed, July 5, 2006 11:28 pm
Hot and new s h e m a l e Recently added p
o r n Modern girls like to grant their wish with enormous frankfurters they have
rush inside and enjoy http://www.asianlb.com/ This woman has very huge bolt in her
pants She has knob under her dress and knows how to use it correctly
These exceptional ladies will bring Inimitable amusement for all who visits them
Keen scenes of ladyboys who divert near you are the best to observe
Mr. deSouza pointed out that many spammers work on contract for other people's businesses. "If you're contracted by a company that sells watches or drugs, you might be perfectly happy spamming about watches or drugs," he said.
Very true, and this is why I've said for a long time that if we ever want to do anything about spam, there's a way to do it without infringing on anyone's freedom of speech: follow the money. You have the right to send any e-mail you want, including spam, and that's the way it should be. You do not have the right to commit other crimes -- e.g. fraud, practicing medicine without a license, etc. -- just because it's "DIFFERENT, this is on the INTERNET." Go after the people who are paying the bills, and most of the "spam kings" will find themselves out of business in short order.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Certainly sex has been at the heart of a lot of new industries -- Polaroid cameras, VCRs, Internet, camcorders but it isn't the only common thread shared by the spam in my 'junk' mailbox. Almost all of the offers are either illegal or of dubious legality. Fake Rolex watches, under-the-counter drugs, porn, financial scams. The thing that they all have in common is that they cannot advertise through legitimate channels. Spam is the electronic eqivalent of the guy in the trench coat hanging out in the dark alley who makes a furtive offer under his breath as you walk by.
Porn spam is common and effective because sex is one of the basic human needs, so it's natural that more people are attracted to porn spam than Rolex watches for example. This is what first came to my mind when I read the title, and it turned out the article revolves around this idea.
The article requires login by the way, and BugMeNot comes to the rescue.
python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
Well, duh . :)
Look at how we were put together. Whether you're a Christian - "Go forth and multiply" - or simply following simple biological design, we were born to breed, all life is.
Using porn - the modern, supposedly "illicit" form of personal pleasure that doesn't involve the use of exterior drugs (not produced by the body) - marketing appeals to our basest instincts. How could it go wrong?
Te Quiero, Puta!
My God, I hope that number is inflated. The economics of spam are always based on, "Well, even if only 1/100 of 1% results in a purchase, it's profitable for them". If 5.6% of porn spams actually are actually clicked through, it means that spam is getting way, way more attention than the threshold, and the spams are never going away, even though only a fraction of those click-throughs result in sales. Crap.
(Looking is, for the most part, free, except that if you're clicking through porn spam you're probably doing it on an un-updated version of IE, and now you're relaying spam, too.)
The best spam email I ever got was the one saying "Genuine fake rolexes"
They also forgot to consider a few points: 1. Someone who wants prescription drugs will either buy on a pharmacy (usually cheaper), or probably ask someone they know before taking into account that weird email that sells X4N4*, z0l0f7 and other medicines. 2. Most people tend to ignore those spams (from pharmacies), as most of the people don't care about that, whereas when it comes to porn, well, one always get a freebie on the website... and everybody loves porn ;)
"Go forth, and be excellent to each other" --Bill & Ted
From the looks of it, porn spam news items on Slashdot are a lot more successful than medical spam news items.
Where were you when the voynix came?
With naked boobies, you can send a sample. Most people are already quite happy to LOOK at some of those milk bars, they needn't swallow to enjoy it.
It's different with pharmacies.
And, don't forget, there's always the hope that you might get free pr0n. Maybe just one or two pics, but hey! Free v14gr4, that's unheard of. Not even a pill.
Not that I'd need it, I just recently enhanced my malehood! I got a new sports car...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have been keeping tally on one of my 'freebie' accounts since June last year.
2005:
Porn = 651
Legit = 1,017
Spam = 302
Phishing = 59
So for for 2006:
Porn = 1,587
Legit = 870
Spam = 1,713
Phishing = 74
Panic now, beat the rush!
What? The internet is for porn? Say it ain't so!
Seriously, it's all people think about, though perhaps not actively. Sure we love technology, but even when I'm using Mac OS X every few seconds my brain strays to thoughts like "I wish I knew a beatiful woman who uses Mac OS X" or "wow, some naked female professional tennis players could really spruce up the next OS X commercial."
Haiku for you!
hmm, maybe the click rates would be higher if the drug ads offered free porn if you went to their website?
in any case this article is really missing the point - people just don't buy drugs over the internet - duh! drugs from an unknown source can be deadly, whereas porn is harmless and a relatively established internet business.
Yeah, but who wants to type a whole romance novel in which the heroine meets a bad boy, sleeps with him until they break up and return to reveal he has both a heart of gold and a boat full of it, too!
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Who told them I can't get it up and I'm underendowed?
Vote Quimby!
Disclosure: I am currently employed by a pharmaceutical company, but my low opinion of buying drugs through spam pre-dates my employment.
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The news isn't that sex sells, it's that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor.
The closest competitor is pharmaceuticals (e.g., ads for Viagra/Cialis/Levitra).
So it's not just that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor, it's that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor, which is also sex.
I'm trying to figure out the balance here: All spammers ever offer me is porn and penis enlargement pills. What I want to know is, if all I'm doing is jacking off to porn, why the hell does it matter how big it is?
This is not my sandwich.
"It probably won't take very long to figure out who's working in syndicate on this SPAM scheme. They're going to get hurt pretty hard. I mean.. after a while they will be able to figure out who is buying just before these SPAMs go out and start putting together the syndication."
Well, the NSA has their - emails, phone records, and bank records - it shouldn't take them too long.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Sports spectatorship and war don't have much of a sex-link, but are both huge business. I don't get any spam along those lines.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Does human beauty always allude to sex?
/.) I am speaking in broad terms that apply across our species and not to specific relationships; which have other factors as well; but even then the underlying economic forces are at work.
In general, yes because as a species we are wired to reproduce; beauty is one signal that the other person is healthy and will be able to produce healthy offspring. We seek signs that a prospective mate will help be able to reproduce and provide desirable traits in our children. Beauty is one part of that; and what is attractive in a male to a female is different than what a man finds attractive in a female; a good bit of that is driven by the economic factors in a relationship (and I mean fundamental principles not money). A women is investing at least 9 months in giving birth plus generally shoulders much of the child rearing burden; an man needs about an hour and he's done - why do you think signals that say "will commit" and "can provide" are valuable to women?
And before someone goes off on a rant (hope springs eternal on
Beauty is a broad concept. And appeals to us in many different ways.
Yes, but in humans there are some standard things that imply beauty which can be traced to health and reproductive ability. Amongst them are symmetry and body fat.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Sports:
First, if you're a woman you might have a different take on the sport thing. Secondly, cheerleaders aren't there to lead cheers. Third, a male sports commentator can look like a horses end, but a female sports reporter tends to be attractive. Fourth, those beer commercials that inundate your average sporting event sell sex by the boatload. Fifth, SI has a swimsuit issue, but I guess people read it for the articles. I could go on, but you get the idea.
War:
War is greed -- greed for power. Power is sex.
As far as the war spam goes, you obviously don't get the 'Limbaugh Letter'.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Ric Romero? Is that you?
Let's face it... It's a visual medium. If Nigerian scam artists were hotter, and included photos, they'd probably get more traffic, and make more money.
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
The third most successful variety is spam advertising Rolex watches, 0.0075 percent of which get clicked on,
Wow, so many naive users out there.