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{"id":339,"date":"2018-04-23T14:49:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T14:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icaruspressblog.wordpress.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2019-04-17T11:54:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T11:54:14","slug":"show-me-the-money-the-economic-realities-of-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/23\/show-me-the-money-the-economic-realities-of-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"Show Me the Money: The Economic Realities of Spam"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"money\"$ We all know it and we all hate it. Some of us scream and kick and some of us mutter epithets under our breath. We spend inordinate amounts of time managing it and scads of money on spam filters in an effort to avoid it. No matter how you deal with it, how much you hate it, and how much you revile it, most of us can agree on one simple fact: spam sucks. No matter what the source, spam is a social disease that has entrenched itself so firmly in our work life and home life that it\u2019s developed a sort of pop culture status, not unlike dead rock stars in bathtubs in the 1960\u2019s or the infestation that was disco in the 1970\u2019s. We make jokes about the spammers and find solace in the probability that they sign their names with an X and use crayons<\/a> to make crude drawings that get used to order lunch.<\/p>\n

We even assume<\/a> that they make bags of money<\/a> on the backs of little old grannies living off fixed incomes, and even hard-working people like you and me. We imagine that they live lavish lifestyles<\/a> that make most of us tremendously jealous and permanently resentful because the pockets of honest, god-fearing taxpayers fund it all.<\/p>\n

But do<\/em> they make money? Stop and think about it for a second. It\u2019s not like you can pick up the yellow pages and flip over to \u2018Spammers and Scammers\u2019, trace your finger down the list to \u2018ACME Spamming and Male Enhancement\u2019, dial the number and ask in the most respectful Yoruba<\/a> you can muster, \u201chey, how much are you making peddling fake Viagra?\u201d (as an aside, it would be pretty funny to call a spammer, tell him you\u2019re from Microsoft, and try to help him fix his system\u2019s security)<\/p>\n

For obvious reasons, you can\u2019t survey the spammers, so for the most part we have to rely on empirical data. The problem, of course, with empirical data is that we often don\u2019t have all the facts. On a corporate level, many businesses don\u2019t want to let it slip that they got caught with their pants down, especially if the business is publicly traded and relies on stockholder confidence. On a consumer level, many people are just plain embarrassed to have been scammed, get told by law enforcement that there\u2019s nothing the cops can do, or correctly assume that they have no legal recourse and don\u2019t bother reporting it. So, for the most part, we don\u2019t really have reliable data to go on and have to make a lot of assumptions.<\/p>\n

Terry Zink, one of my favorite people and spam guru extraordinaire, recently penned an article<\/a> on the subject. Entitled \u201cHow much money do spammers make?\u201d, Terry\u2019s article discusses his own skepticism at attempts to apply a number to the problem, and how a recent study by several PhDs at UCSD changed his mind on the subject.<\/p>\n

The basic premise is that crime pays. \u201cWell, duh!\u201d you say, but we didn\u2019t really<\/em> know whether spammers are making any money. One could assume, of course, that they wouldn\u2019t continue to peddle their wares unless there was some money to be made, and as the UCSD study reveals, one would be correct. The researchers \u201creversed[sic] engineered the algorithms that spammer merchants use when they ship product (which, btw, contain mostly the correct chemicals that go into the real products).\u201d In doing so, the researchers were able to calculate \u201chow many orders they were processing and [multiplied] by the average price.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one example, Eva Pharmacy, an online purveyor of \u2013 what else? \u2013 Viagra (also referred to as a \u2018men\u2019s health\u2019 product and even a \u2018women\u2019s health\u2019 product, i.e., Viagra marketed to women \u2013 who knew?) is pulling down $2.4 million a month. Now, Eva Pharmacy skirts the boundary of what\u2019s considered to be illegal, and as Terry points out, they happen to be one of the online pharmacies actually selling real product \u2013 that is, the pills they purvey contain active ingredients, unlike some other online pharmacies we\u2019re aware of.<\/p>\n

Terry\u2019s notes from the presentation he attended also contain information about other spammers, and as it turns out, the economics of spamming very much resemble life outside the Interwebs, where some businesses make lots of money and others make a little. From this, we can extrapolate that some of them are living in those lavish mansions and that others, alas, probably have to settle for a nicely appointed home in an upscale African or Russian neighborhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"