From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM)
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 11:37:00 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Anonymous mail as spam?
In-Reply-To: <199703261646.RAA10051@digicash.com>
Message-ID: <osT74D25w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Bryce <bryce@digicash.com> writes:

>  "Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>" typed:
> >
> >   I believe that the 'money-point' for UCE (unsolicited commercial
> > email) spammers is somewhere around .02% for most of their offerings.
> >   In other words, they need to send out 10,000 emails and get a response
> > just to break even.
>
> Actually I had a talk with a certain anti-spam ISP owner
> recently, and she asserted that the spammers don't make
> significant money from responses to their spams, but are
> instead making their money from stupid newbie companies who
> pay them for advertising service.

That's an interesting business model.
Alice doesn't know shit about the 'net.
In particular, Alice doesn't know that UCE annoys people and
doesn't generate income; and Alice doesn't have the technical
expertise to set up a SLIP/PPP account, not to mention mass-mailing.
Alice pays Bob to mass-mail her UCE from a throw-away account.
Alice probably pays Bob a lot.
Bob probably promises Alice a lot.
Should Alice be encouraged to sue Bob for fraudulent misrepresetation
of UCE? :-)
Would a journalist with any semblance of integrity try to inform
Alice that UCE doesn't pay, instead of calling for more censorship?

> It's an interesting proposition.  You would think, though, that
> the spamsters might as well just take the stupid newbie
> company's cash and then send a couple of token e-mail
> messages, if that's their business model.  :-)

*If* there was a free, easy way to remove addresses of people who
don't want junk e-mail from their mailing lists, most junk e-mailers
would probably try to use it. The (snail-mail) direct marketers
association has it; I put my name on their block list and I
get almost no junk snail-mail.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps