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Former Spammer Reveals Secrets in New Book

Posted by Zonk on from the sleeps-better-on-his-bed-of-royalties dept.

StonyandCher writes "A retired spammer is looking to make money from a tell-all book rather than fleecing people dependent on pharmaceuticals and people with gambling problems. In this Computerworld article 'Ed', a retired spammer, predicts the spam problem will only get worse, aided by consumers with dependencies and faster broadband speeds. From the article: 'He sent spam to recovering gambling addicts enticing them to gambling Web sites. He used e-mail addresses of people known to have bought antianxiety medication or antidepressants and targeted them with pharmaceutical spam. Response rates to spam tend to be a fraction of 1 percent. But Ed said he once got a 30 percent response rate for a campaign. The product? A niche type of adult entertainment: photos of fully clothed women popping balloons ... "Yes, I know I'm going to hell," said Ed."

20 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Let me guess... by Fx.Dr · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's a pop-up book? Sorry, couldn't resist.

    1. Re:Let me guess... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Funny
      Speaking of pop-ups...

      It's hard to go into a bar and explain your job to a woman by saying "I advertise penis enlargement pills online," Ed said. "It doesn't go down very well."

      Of course it doesn't go down well, it's enlarged. Sheesh.
      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  2. One Percent With No Communication Cost! by garcia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article: 'He sent spam to recovering gambling addicts enticing them to gambling Web sites. He used e-mail addresses of people known to have bought antianxiety medication or antidepressants and targeted them with pharmaceutical spam. Response rates to spam tend to be a fraction of 1 percent.

    I work with targeted communications and our success rates with similar lists are just as "successful". We were looking to contact Juniors and Seniors in HS to let them know of our offerings and had a list that supposedly contained names and addresses (no e-mail/phone) of people that would be in this demographic. Out of 9800 people we had a 0.93% response rate. Being that the cost of that list was as low as it was we will do it again...

    I can only imagine what an advantage it is having such a low communication cost (it costs us .41/each) and having a 1% return rate... If only I could retire on the money I make ;)

    1. Re:One Percent With No Communication Cost! by mpapet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Interesting.

      I find it very telling that there's very little of the usual /. moral outrage associated with spam.

      It's clearly okay for corporations to collect and maintain detailed records of individual consumer preferences, financial records and medical records. And yet, when identity theft stories appear, there is the usual hue and cry "something must be done!"

      It seems to me that few people understand the two go together like beer and potato chips.

      --
      http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
    2. Re:One Percent With No Communication Cost! by Proteus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, I'm failing to see why sending snail mail spam is ok, but email and SMS spam, unsolicited telephone marketting, etc are bad.

      Yes, yes you are. Let me break it down, since you're actually speaking of three things here:

      1. With "postal spam", otherwise known as "junk mail":
        1. The sender bears the entire cost
        2. Fraudulent claims in ads are pursued
        3. The Direct Marketing Association will gladly remove you from member mailing lists (stopping about 85% of junk mail, in my experience)
      2. With email and SMS spam:
        1. The recipient bears the majority of the cost (actually, the ISP does, in terms of increased bandwidth and storage requirements, but they pass these costs on to subscribers in order to keep making a profit; the distinction is therefor irrelevant).
        2. "E-mail fraud" doesn't have the same problems as mail fraud, and is not readily investigated
        3. There is no large central trade association that manages the majority of e-mail marketing -- you often can't get your name off of anyone's lists
      3. With telemarketing:
        1. The caller bears the cost
        2. The recipient has no control over the timing (the phone rings during dinner, e.g.), making it very annoying
        3. There is a do-not-call registry

      In short, people put up with junk mail because it doesn't cost them anything, only saps a couple of minutes of time once a day (at most!), and isn't particularly annoying.

      People don't like e-mail and SMS spam because it costs them something, is very annoying, is often fradulent, and takes time and effort to deal with almost every time one checks one's mail. Likewise, telemarketing is very annoying.

      --
      We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
  3. Paid in CASH?! by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh I'm sure the "Department of Homeland Security" with the urging of the IRS will be drafting several letters to get the identity of this guy... paid in cash?! He is bound to be hit up for tax evasion. Yes, indeed he *IS* going to hell, but he won't have to die to get there!

  4. photos of fully clothed women popping balloons by klenwell · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's the only kind of adult entertainment fully endorsed by my church and my local clown guild.

    --
    Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
  5. Wow! by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Funny

    But Ed said he once got a 30 percent response rate for a campaign. The product? A niche type of adult entertainment: photos of fully clothed women popping balloons ... "Yes, I know I'm going to hell"

    I've never gotten such spam.

    I'm surprised it was only 30% -- that kind of thing is bound to pique the interest of a whole lotta people.

    (Oh, come on, admit it, you're googling it right now, aren't you? Oh, maybe I'm going to hell too ;-)

    Cheers
    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Wow! by A_Non_Moose · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've never gotten such spam.

      I'm surprised it was only 30% -- that kind of thing is bound to pique the interest of a whole lotta people.

      (/user looks up from bubble wrap section)

      I (pop) haven't either (pop) but, honestly, (pop!pop!) have no interest in the (pop!pop!pop!pop!) subject.

      Now, clad in bubblewrap (pop), and the eventual popping (pop!pop!) is another subject (pop!pop!).
      --
      Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
    2. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oddly enough, if you combine the two fetishes (GPs male-only fetish and your female equivalent), you get something entirely normal and even a recommended practice to avoid pregnancy and STDs....

  6. Sod the spammer, how about the sources of his info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'He sent spam to recovering gambling addicts enticing them to gambling Web sites. He used e-mail addresses of people known to have bought antianxiety medication or antidepressants and targeted them with pharmaceutical spam. '

    Some companies dealing with confidential information clearly have been passing on this information.

    This guy should be forced to disclose where he got the information from, so that these companies can be punished for poor data security, or worse, actually selling such sensitive private information on.

    I also believe that there are laws against the exploitation of vulnerable people, but they're probably next to useless, and poorly defined (or specifically defined, so won't apply to X because it only mentions Y).

  7. Jeeze! It is too simple by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as there is demand, and the business is profitable, you will have spam. Trying to get rid of spammers will only make it more profitable and worth the risks for those remaining. Wake up! It is no different than anything else. The customer drives this business, not the seller. They(the seller) are simply a response. Talk about passing the buck!

    --
    What?
    1. Re:Jeeze! It is too simple by spun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Capitalism or any other economic system can in fact be tempered with a sense of justice, fairness, and decency and still function. One way of ensuring that justice, fairness, and decency prevail is to call out the opposite when you see it. Just because something is a certain way doesn't mean it should be. Your wording isn't clear, so let me ask straight up: are you saying we shouldn't criticize people who engage in immoral or unethical behavior but legal behavior?

      If a system encourages the exploitation of weakness, is it in the best interest of the weak to support such a system?

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  8. I don't believe in an afterlife... by Nimey · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...but part of me wants there to be a very special hell for spammers (and people who talk in the theater).

    --
    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem
  9. Re: Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Watching her inflate the balloon too much... you know it's gonna pop, you know she knows it... but she just keeps going... <<shiver>>

  10. Earn thousands with ads like this one by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Funny
    Earn thousands with ads like this one...send three dollars for instructions.

    This was an actual ad that frequently ran in the national enquirer

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  11. Born Every Minute by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article:

    The ultimate unsolvable problem is users, who continue to buy products marketed by spam, making the industry possible.

    Huh. There's a sucker born every minute. The Interenet hasn't changed human nature - just given the con men more tools.
  12. Re:Good news by lena_10326 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This also reinforces my assumption that for the most part spamming is just a way to make some easy money without much real work. Most people are not going to get rich off it, but if one is a country where a few thousand a year is good money, then hey, it beats doing honest work. It might even product the 20K a year one needs to live in the US. But like any organized crime, a few get insanely rich, and the rest get knocked off for pocket change.
    I know an owner of a legitimate "spam" business. The owner grosses over $20 million a year with an approximate 50% margin of profit. The amount of money made depends on several factors that are difficult to maintain over time, which is why you don't see everyone making 10's of millions dollars off spam.
    • a clean email list - cleaning an email list requires sending an email and not receiving a bounce. There is risk in testing the email because if you test too many bad ones you can get blocked, but once it's tested it's worth considerably more than an unclean email.
    • list of active users - users who opened or clicked. An order of magnitude more valuable than a clean email.
    • relationships - avoiding email blocks and getting unblocked
    • distributed servers - avoid email blocks by sending from and rotating multiple IPs. The more you have, the more stable the delivery is.
    • delivery - your email has to make it to the inbox. An order of magnitude more valuable than Bulk box delivery. Bulk delivery is still better than no delivery, which can be the case if you're blocked.
    If you have all those factors in your favor, you can sustain the profits, which is what the major "legitimate" commercial emailers do. The true spammers are usually a bit more shitty, using trojans and disposable accounts, but achieve the same effect, usually at the cost of the ISP, however they're risking jail time if they're caught.

    --
    Camping on quad since 1996.
  13. Re:Actually... by LurkerXXX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My guess? Right before he wrote that, he created a website with women popping balloons and is now making tons of revenue off the huge volume of views the ads on the site are getting now that it's being /.'d.

  14. Re:Not my Church. by Adambomb · · Score: 4, Funny

    And the People for the Ethical Treatment of Balloons.

    --
    Ice Cream has no bones.