On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 19:57:14 GMT, Peggie Hall wrote:

That's true. You have two tiers of spam: those who are hawking their own stuff,
and those who are selling a spamming service to people who don't know any
better. I suspect the latter group (the big spamhauses) are larger. While they
make their money by selling their "services" to ignorant merchants, if the word
were to get out that spamming simply doesn't work as a marketing approach, then
their market would dry up.

If only that WERE true! Any merchant who doesn't know by now that spam
is unwelcome would have to be more than just ignorant...he'd have to
either be brain dead or live in vacuum where computers don't exist.

....or he'd have to be susceptible to the sales pitch from some spamhaus.

P.T. was right, after all...

Unfortunately, spam is a very cheap form of advertising--so cheap that a
return of 1% or less makes it profitable for the spammer AND his merchant.

Well, let me put it into perspective. I use direct mail (snail) quite a lot in
my business. My cost is around $400.00 per thousand pieces mailed. If I get a
1% response, I dance in the streets! That gives me a cost-per-lead of $40.00.
As it happens, I get a response approaching .75%. Compare that with a spammer
who sends out 30 *million* letters, charging his suck...uh, client $1,000 for
that "service." Depending on what the guy is selling, the response percentages
can be very, very small to generate a profit.

The anti-spam legislation just passed by Congress sounds good, but in
fact will be totally ineffective...because spammers will simply move
offshore where they aren't affected by any US laws prohibiting the
sending of it...in fact, at least half of it now originates from
offshore. And a national "no spam" list will only give 'em lists of good
email addresses. About all it will accomplish will be to discourage
legimate US businesses from using spam as an advertising medium.

The real solution IMO would be to require ISPs to block all incoming
email to more than 10 addresses from the same sender.

That would be one solution, but keep in mind that the spammers don't use a
traditional ISP. In many cases they're hijacking someone else's open mail
relay.

Joe Parsons


Peggie
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Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://www.seaworthy.com/html/get_ri...oat_odors.html