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Re: [Asrg] Re: News Article - CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER SPAMMER - text included

2003-05-11 13:00:42
Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
Take a look at this SlashDot story:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/05/11/1648253.shtml?tid=126&tid=111

a couple of quotes from the article:

> The response rate is extremely low: One-tenth of a percentage point is
> considered wildly successful, Shiels and spam experts agree. For
> spammers, that's made up for by the ability to send millions of
> e-mails a day and the relatively generous commissions.
> ...
> Viagra distributors pay spammers per sale -- about $60 for every $150
> order -- while financial companies typically pay for every consumer
> who requests more information -- as much as $12 for mortgage leads and
> as much as $5 for insurance referrals, Shiels said.
> ...
> Playing by the law Even amid the spam war, Shiels said, he went out of
> his way to comply with the various antispam laws.
> ...
> Lawmakers continue to pursue legislation that would make it more
> difficult for spammers to do their jobs. But Shiels doesn't think they
> would have had any effect on him.

I think that if legislation were to help in the fight, it's not the spammers that we need to be fining, but the people who are advertising via the spam.

After all, it's these companies whose goods are being advertised via spam. The spammers may be making commissions, but it's the companies who're the ones profitting from the sales. If the anti-spam laws said that a company could be fined for selling via unsolicited email, and the fines were (say) double the price of whatever they were selling, the companies would soon stop advertising that way.

Ok, blast away. I'm sure there're lots of holes. :-)

        Tony Hansen
        tony(_at_)att(_dot_)com

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