The mystery of spam
Wave after wave of meaty spam drips down my computers screen. I am spending some time this morning tweaking my email filters. For the last ten years, the junk mail problem has plagued power email users, originally a few emails a week, usually from real companies trying to mass-market sell junk and eventually evolving into today's deluge of odd sales pitches. Today's spam is odd-looking, almost Daliesque, with their deliberate misspellings, use of spacing and symbols and what can only be called crazy products.
Who buys these things? Really, someone must be buying these right?
How about this note from "Betsy Fink":
Hello! I am tired tonight. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at wnnllc@TheGlowPuppy.info only, because I am writing not from my personal email. To see my pics
or Rico Sanderson's financial missive:
Look atCompany T ride n Telecom New
T._R_(T)_M_
T./R/(T)[M] (tri.de,n Telecom) just added Permanent Technologies with its
Tine-Lok Fastening Technology for high vibration environments.
This amazing addition should supply a hearty boost to the value of (T).R..T./M/Succuss for sure
Many of these spammail point to normal looking websites selling slightly off products. Like this one which points to a site called Canadian Pharmacies. They purport to sell Canadian drugs including "Penis Growth Patch" and "Penis Growth Oil"
The FAQ explains the mechanics of the online drug industry and is oddly compelling, like this explanation to the question of "why are your drugs so cheap?"
A: There is a number of reasons for that. We do not spend anything on marketing, there are no taxes to be paid as the product comes into the country unregistered, the manufacturer is located in an offshore zone and the production costs are way lower. No child labor is used.
I understand that the misspellings in the spammail are an attempt to circumvent filtering software. I assume the horrible grammar at the websites is because the people writing the website are Nigerian and speak English as a tenth language. What I don't understand is which idiot consumers ignore the choppy email, click through, get to the equally disturbing drug websites and type in their credit card number. (For a good explanation of the economics of Viagra spam, see here.)
Posted on November 29, 2007
