From: Dave Aronson <dja2003(_at_)hotpop(_dot_)com>
...
Does anybody have any actual numbers on how good a return spammers get on
their spam, in terms of, say, cents per thousand spams? I suspect this
will be very hard to measure for spam that works indirectly (like
getting people to go to a URL that does not have an embedded tracking
number), and vastly different per category, but there may be SOME hard
data out there....
I suspect anyone who claims to be able to answer that question is
either a spammer and so a pathological, unbelievable lier, or a
poseur of a lier. The amount of lawbreaking in spam ensures that
those who really and actually make a profit will keep quiet.
Occassionally there are hints of believable numbers, such as the recent
excitement about the money made by selling "Iraq playing cards."
See http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~1443978,00.html
and http://www.iht.com/articles/99019.htm
However, such notes are so rare that they only show how little is known.
It's worth distinguishing between the senders of bulk email who
charge for that service and those who hope to get rich selling whatever.
> Free providers often impose delays of more than 10 seconds for
> account creation.
Heck, that much delay can be imposed by normal data processing, web
congestion, etc....
That's most of what I meant.
...
for different providers, and configgable so you can keep up with changes
in their screens. Of course I'll leave it as an exercise for the
lurking spammers and spam-symps, but I can easily imagine someone
writing this sucker and selling it to spammers.
Or again, selling it to "home workers" via spam.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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