Question about spam

[Abdul Alhazred]

I put this here, rather than the Computer forum, because this is really a question about economics.

Aside from the phony "Mircosoft updates" and the like which are trojan horses for malicious software, there is much spam which is "honest" in the sense of really (apparently) trying to sell me something.

Aside from the trojans, which have their own agenda of extortion, harassment, or theft of services, rather than sales, does anyone ever make money from spam?

You know, penis enlargers with random accent marks like 'pénïs ênlargèrs' to get past the filter, phoney viagra sustitutes, credit repair for deadbeats, breast enlargement on the same terms as penis same, Ruritanian girls who want to meet me, etc.

I am thinking that the ones making the money are the sellers of spamming software, not the actual spammers-who-would-be-scammers.

Does this make sense? Or is finding just one pigeon really that profitable?

I throw this out to the forum for comment.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

That's a good question. Technically the method doesn't need to actually be profitable for it to become popular - it only needs to be perceived as popular. How could anyone really check on spam's effectiveness?

Still, it costs very little to send out millions of emails. And if only one in a hundred thousand people responds... well, you've just made ten sales using a technique that probably cost far less than the worth of one sale.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

That's a good question. Technically the method doesn't need to actually be profitable for it to become popular - it only needs to be perceived as popular. How could anyone really check on spam's effectiveness?

Still, it costs very little to send out millions of emails. And if only one in a hundred thousand people responds... well, you've just made ten sales using a technique that probably cost far less than the worth of one sale.

I'd tend to agree in general. A "numbers game" as they say. But what about the dodges to get past filters?

Do they suppose that their penis enlargement or credit repair techniques are so compelling that even people who already systematically ignore such stuff will bite this time based on their really seductive subject line?

If they are just fishing for pure dopes, why bother with going to a whole lot of trouble to defeat filters?

Gotchas with a really suggestive subject line of creative misspelling and random diacriticals?

Something along the lines of: I will süùçq yër ðìqq.

I still think the profitable scam is selling spamming software to moronic would-be entrepreneurs, not spamming itself.

But I might be wrong. Maybe finding just one pigeon is enough? Or some small number? To be otherwise exploited off the net once found?

 

[peptoabysmal]

I believe it was PT Barnum who was wrongfully credited with saying "There's a sucker born every minute".

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

I believe it was PT Barnum who was wrongfully credited with saying "There's a sucker born every minute".

There's a sucker born every minute and two to take him. That's how I heard it. Credited to George Stuyvers who invented 'pitch', not Barnum.

But who is really the sucker here?

I say the buyer of spamming software who annoys us all, not the ocassional fool who responds.

 

[karl]

If they are just fishing for pure dopes, why bother with going to a whole lot of trouble to defeat filters?

My guess would be that most spam filters aren't installed by the dopes themselves, but by their local network/computer technician or Internet provider. Typical dopes are unaware that there is a barrier in place and that spammers are working hard to get through it.

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

I used to work for a company that hosted spammers, so I have a little knowledge of how it works.

In the case of what I dealt with, my company provided physical space and bandwidth to an "advertising company" who would charge money for spamming. Basically, they would charge their clients something obnoxiously low, like $.0001 per e-mail per mailing, which worked out to be something like $500 per mass mailing, but they had over 1000 clients. You can imagine the shear number of ads that go out for that $500, and the clients felt that if even 2% of the recipients actually ordered something, it would turn a serious profit for them.

So the fact that spam is an advertising medium where a company can reach millions of people for a few hundred dollars is why it is still considered viable and why the spam industry tries so hard to keep it going.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

I used to work for a company that hosted spammers, so I have a little knowledge of how it works.

In the case of what I dealt with, my company provided physical space and bandwidth to an "advertising company" who would charge money for spamming. Basically, they would charge their clients something obnoxiously low, like $.0001 per e-mail per mailing, which worked out to be something like $500 per mass mailing, but they had over 1000 clients. You can imagine the shear number of ads that go out for that $500, and the clients felt that if even 2% of the recipients actually ordered something, it would turn a serious profit for them.

So the fact that spam is an advertising medium where a company can reach millions of people for a few hundred dollars is why it is still considered viable and why the spam industry tries so hard to keep it going.

Sounds to me like the spammer's stinky ISP makes the money, not the damphool spammer.

Which is what I suspected.

 

[Iconoclast]

You can imagine the shear number of ads that go out for that $500, and the clients felt that if even 2% of the recipients actually ordered something, it would turn a serious profit for them.

This 2% number is wrong by several orders of magnitude. One of the big spam kings was recently interviewed (no link, sorry) and he stated that 0.1% of the spam he sent out was read, this is, 99.9% of his emails are deleted before they are even viewed. Now, if 1% of the people who actually read the email ordered something, and I think that number is optimistic by another order of magnitude, the company mentioned in the spam would be receiving an order from only 0.001% of the emails sent. So much wasted bandwidth.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Remember the good old times when you could make money having a banner advertisers figured out they were losing money. Here's to hoping spammers will eventually come to the same result (NOT holding my breath, tho').

I have one idea of how it might work though: Some of the suckers who may fall for spam actually realize they are suckers and thus install spam filters to try and avoid being fooled (why, I have had spam selling anti-spam software). Thus, by slipping past filters, spammers hope to find a sucker who tried to protect himself.

The basis for this seemingly silly notion is that I have more than once heard people say something along the lines of: "No I never go to sales, because I always buy something stupid".

Hans

 

[Bottle or the Gun]

Soon spammers will have to pay a prohibitive fee to send e-mail. How soon will it be before I have to buy e-mail stamps? It may be that soon the cost of e-mail is prohibitive to the average consumer.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Actually, that might not be a bad solution! Just a one-cent fee wil make life intolerable for spammers, but wouldn't bother the rest of us at all. Of course this requires it to be enforcable.

Hey! I have an even better idea: Sending an e-mail costs 25c, which is credited to the receiver of the mail . We might end up loving the spammers!

Hans