Many Well Known Companies Profiting From Spam

from the little-incentive-to-stop-spam dept

Whenever we post articles here about ways to stop spam, someone usually suggests that the only way to stop spam is to stop those who profit from it. However, as MSNBC has tried to track down just who profits from spam, the results show it might not be that easy. The problem is, that there's a whole chain of people in the "spam line", and while there may be a completely legitimate (often well known) company at the end of the line, the incentives remain for spammers to continue. Basically, the legitimate companies are buying "leads lists" from companies that claim they have legitimate leads. However, those leads come from other companies or individuals, who seem to buy them from others, who buy them from others, and so on down the line to the eventual spammer. The large companies at the end of the line insist their anti-spam, and will cut off companies that sell them tainted lists, but there's almost no auditing of the lists to determine where they really came from. The article also points out that the ISPs, for all the talk they put forth about stopping spam, often profit from spammers willing to buy expensive access to support their spam operations. One ISP anti-spam fighter mentions that he'll disconnect someone, and "hours later our money-thirsty salesmen sold him the service again."
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2003 @ 12:00pm

    How about foreign language spam?

    In an email first, I received spam in Japanese today. Up to now, I've met a good many foreigners who accused spam of being an "American problem", but this is like accusing automobile accidents of being an American problem.

    Perhaps we are still in a relatively innocuous phase of spam, when we at least understand what they are trying to sell. Maybe we'll start getting Afghan spam for slave children at 100 rupees each, Chinese spam for supermarket sales in Chengdu.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.