
Spammers profit despite getting one sale for every 12.5 million e-mails they send. - makimaki
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7719281.stm
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endtwist
This is actually fascinating.

I'm not totally surprised by these numbers (350 million messages, only 28
sales), but I am glad to see that there are people out there actually
attempting to figure out what the true numbers are (as opposed to the tens of
millions of dollars myth). Based on what the story says, spammers are
potentially earning about $2 million a year. I suppose larger spammers could
be earning 3 - 4x that (so, $6 - 8 million), and this obviously isn't chump
change.

This study points out what we already know, though: there is a problem with
email. The barrier to entry is too low which is both a blessing and a curse.
It allows people communicate with ease, but it also allows people to send
millions or billions of emails at little or no cost to them. Now, I know that
these are hijacked computers, but the point remains that since it is so easy
and cost-efficient to send email, it becomes profitable at virtually _any
scale_ because of the non-existent cost.

I'm not saying that we should charge for every email, since that may not be a
viable solution (though it could work), but there does need to be something
done besides continuously improving our spam filters.

Also, isn't the methodology used by the researchers technically illegal?

"The team used these machines to control a total of 75,869 hijacked machines
and routed their own fake spam campaigns through them."

~~~
Hexstream
"The fake pharmacy site was made to resemble those run by Storm's real owners
but always returned an error message when potential buyers clicked a button to
submit their credit card details."

~~~
greyman
Yes, but that don't necessarily make their action technically legal.

I find their methodology interesting, but anyway, wasn't similar numbers
reported/predicted before?

------
fallentimes
I actually thought the sale rate would be higher. I know so many people that
will click (and buy) anything.

Glad I was wrong.

~~~
stanley
The ratio of emails sent vs. sales generated depends largely on the quality of
the mailing list.

Professional mailers buy or lease mailing lists which are more less targeted
and hence have higher return rates. On the flip side you have mailers that
scrape the web for emails so they have a lower acquisition cost but also a
lower hit rate.

~~~
fallentimes
Agreed. Even knowing that I thought it'd be higher.

I used to work for a company like JT Marlin; they'd buy company phone books by
the 100.

------
alexkay
The original report: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=358884>

