Jon maddog Hall wrote: >>Well, SPAM is employing a lot of people. That's probably the real problem. >> >> > >I think that the real problem is that people reply and react to SPAM. That >is what makes SPAM "profitable". Unfortunately it is also a hard habit to >break in the general population. > >md > > Intriguing; considering most SPAM I get is spoofed, I don't see how a reply would be possible. In fact, the Scientific American article from last month mentioned a very small response rate - but that the rate purchased is enough to make it profitable. We're talking about it being so cheap to SPAM,
So I dug up on the article, which is actually on the web: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F3A4B-BF70-1238-BF7083414B7FFE9F&sc=I100322 "... The proliferation of fraudulent e-mail results directly from favorable market forces: spam is exceedingly cheap to distribute. It is not altogether free, though. We estimate that a message costs about one hundredth of a cent to send. At these cut-rate prices a spammer can earn only $11 per sale and still make a profit, even if the response rate is as low as one in 100,000. Hence, although very few e-mail users ever buy anything advertised in spam, all of us suffer because of those who do..." Good article. Thank you for inspiring me to find it on the web. :-) -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: Panama City, Panama [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
