Marjorie wrote: > I'm really curious. How do spammers make money? Are there really enough > people out there who receive an email out of the blue and decide to buy > the product or service? Okay, I understand there's a big market for > porn, but what about the rest of it?
Same way as "Honest Abe's Used Cars." "How do we do it? VOLUME!" A spammer sending unsolicited ads expects to get one sale for roughly every 10,000 to 20,000 recipients. By way of comparison, someone sending solicited ads to verified addresses will usually get one sale for every 10 to 100 recipients. Applied, this means that an unsolicited mailing to 5 million addresses may only be as effective as a solicited mailing to 5,000 to 50,000 addresses. I used to honcho solicited mailings that were going to 3,000,000 addresses - to derive the same benefit, a spammer would have to hit more addresses than there are people on the Internet. ;) > I'm surprised that there are enough buyers to make it worthwhile for any > spammer, especially since so many of the web sites and email addresses > get shut down after a short time. I doubt there are many people out there making any reasonable amount of money in the long run by spamming for anything other than porn, "opportunities" (read: pyramid schemes), and spamware for sale. Even the "opportunity" folks are increasingly moving toward use of solicited-ad services like Inbox Dollars and Send More Info. The folks who are making money are, same as always, the snake oil salesmen who dupe others into thinking that giving them money will result in getting more money. Them and the pornmongers. And the pornmongers are more likely to be on the legal side of the line. > Maybe some spammers themselves are "marks" -- duped into buying lists > of email addresses hoping they'll get new customers? You hit the nail on the head there. An entrepreneur or small business owner is likely to be looking for ways of growing their business, driving sales, or building public awareness, and if they're too trusting, they'll be taken by someone selling spamming tools, lists or services. It's a double-whammy - they spend the money without getting a reasonable return on investment *and* they group themselves with the con men in terms of public perception, longevity of Internet access, etc. Getting a second chance can be hard. -Dan -- Biz, Pics, Tech, Words and Spamfighting - http://danbirchall.com/ "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - M Gandhi _______________________________________________ spamcon-general mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.spamcon.org/mailman/listinfo/spamcon-general#subscribers Subscribe, unsubscribe, etc: Use the URL above or send "help" in body of message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Contact administrator: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
