Spammers' prime motivation for engaging in spam campaigns is financial, according to a report by Vircom, a Montreal-based email security provider. The report offers a portrait of a spammer who said
he can earn anywhere from $1,200 to $6,500 for a week's worth of spamming.
The report, "Why Spammers Spam," offers the first comprehensive glimpse into the world of spamming, based on more than
40 hours of interviews with three U.S.-based spammers conducted by telephone, email, and instant messaging. The interview subjects were found on Spamfiles.org, a spammer community that was shut
down more than a month ago.
The three spammers were interviewed over the course of a month, and were asked a variety of questions ranging from the spamming techniques they employed, such as
adding spaces or characters and HTML numbers instead of letters, to why they became involved--"I fell into it because it was so cheap to start up, and I had plenty of time to spend with my kids."
The report interviewed "Virginia," a 19-year-old college student based in the Northeast, "Matt," 29, and "Thomas," in his mid-20s, both of whom work in the information technology field in
California and spam on the side. Virginia, who's been spamming since last fall and has executed several "campaigns," reports earning as little as $150 per campaign and as much as $2,000. Her
earnings depend on the "product, timing, and my creativity," she told researchers.
Spammers often work for affiliate companies that hire individuals to spam for them. The affiliates pay spammers
based on the number of leads they bring to the site (click-through rate), or the sales generated from the spam (commission). Thomas, who's been at it for nearly two years, earns an average of
$1,200 per week and has raked in as much as $6,500 per week. Matt is under exclusive contract with 12 adult sites.
It's relatively inexpensive to start spamming, according to Michael Spooner,
market analyst, Vircom. "A spammer can get started for less than $1,500." The tools required for the job include a computer, an email harvester or a list, an Internet Service Provider, and spamware
to transmit messages. Spammers frequently update their databases, which are comprised of millions of names. One of the spammers interviewed for the report kept a database of 40 million names.
Topics and timing are critically important to spam campaigns. Affiliates hire spammers to market spring break vacations to college students in February and low-interest loans post-holiday season.
Not surprisingly, sex always sells, particularly anything involving celebrity videos and porn. Virginia reports buying
her first list from a friend who introduced her to spamming for $100: "This was a pretty good deal because it had over 15 million names on it. I used this list to swap for more lists; now I have
over 40 million names in my database." While a good spammer always hides his trail, two of the three interview subjects received complaints and ignored them. In response to the question: "Do you
ever get complaints?" Virginia responded: "Sometimes, but I never read them," while Matt said: "All the time--I have had my life threatened several times. I have been called every name in the book
... hey, you just have to shake it off."
Do spammers worry about who receives their messages? Virginia is emphatic: "Definitely--that is why I will never market porn." But Matt, who has peddled
porn, says there are no guarantees that spam messages aren't opened by kids. He later clarified his answer by saying that recipients of adult-oriented messages were registered members of the adult
sites.
In answer to the question, "Do you consider what you are doing as illegal?" Matt responded: "Not at all--we are marketing and promoting items that large companies, Fortune 500s in many
instances, pay us to market. It's a typical big business; they go after the little guy but let the big businesses off the hook."
When asked about the Can-Spam law that went into effect in the
United States on Jan. 1, "All of them were pretty confident that it wouldn't have any bearing on them right now--they thought it was a bit convoluted and lacked enforceability," Spooner says.
"Until there is worldwide legislation, you can move your source of operation to a country without spam laws," Spooner adds.
Spammers like Virginia are astute, intelligent, and tech-savvy: "I try
to be as creative as possible with the look and the feel of my work. I would love if I could create messages that would read like a print advertisement, but I know better; either it would be too
large, or a spam filter would catch it." Virginia's career goal is to work in advertising.