Porn Dominates the Spam Battlefield

An anonymous reader writes "New York Times has published an article that explores the economics that control what type of spam shows up in your inbox. The study was done by CipherTrust and shows that porn spam is 280 times more effective than spam advertising pharmacy drugs. Paul Judge offered the following towards an explanation: 'If you look at some of the oldest and most successful forms of business on earth, they revolve around sex.'"

Combo Ads

pron spam is 280 times more effective than spam advertising pharmacy drugs

I prefer the Combo ads, where it tries to sell you Viagra and shows you pictures of who you could use it on.

Duh

Snake oil is snake oil, but free boobies? PRICELESS

porn spam

We all get it and I'm sure we mostly delete it on the spot with all other SPAM. But I have to admit, if they were to give just a few "freebies" in the SPAM message itself they might be more effective. I mean.. I see a stupid head line, deliberately poor

Re:porn spam

What about us poor souls who use the preview mode which only shows a couple of lines of text only? We miss out on the free pics because all we see is something like "Algorithm Leotard Temple Quantum Holiday FR3E P-0R.N!" (An actual line from my spam bin).

Re:porn spam

The best spam email I ever got was the one saying "Genuine fake rolexes"

Well no shit

Seriously, is this news to anyone? All it takes to learn this is to flip on the TV to any station. Christ, even the local catholic church station. You'll notice they put the prettiest girl they have up on the tube. Why do you think that is?

Sex sells. I love it when they do this on religion stations especially.

Re:Well no shit

The news isn't that sex sells, it's that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor.

Actually...

The news isn't that sex sells, it's that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor.

The closest competitor is pharmaceuticals (e.g., ads for Viagra/Cialis/Levitra).

So it's not just that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor, it's that sex sells at a rate 280 times higher than that of its closest competitor, which is also sex.

Re:all spam is sex

Sports spectatorship and war don't have much of a sex-link, but are both huge business. I don't get any spam along those lines.

Re:all spam is sex

Seriously, if you're a hetero man, can you think of anything you do that doesn't have "a slight probability of having sex" as a motive?

Posting on Slashdot?

Re:beauty and sex

Does human beauty always allude to sex?

In general, yes because as a species we are wired to reproduce; beauty is one signal that the other person is healthy and will be able to produce healthy offspring. We seek signs that a prospective mate will help be a

yeah?

All your spam are belong to porn!

5.6% Click-Through Rate?

I like the unsubstantiated side-bar claiming that porn spam had a 5.6% click-through rate. I suppose that's 5.6% of delivered spam? How could this possibly be measured? I'm not saying it can't be approximated but a sidebar and a couple of quotes are hardly sufficient evidence.

Doomed

My God, I hope that number is inflated. The economics of spam are always based on, "Well, even if only 1/100 of 1% results in a purchase, it's profitable for them". If 5.6% of porn spams actually are actually clicked through, it means that spam is getting

Re:Doomed

Unless you don't have a local mail client ;) I really wonder how many of these issues I avoid completely by relying on web mail...

-Rick

Re:5.6% Click-Through Rate?

If i'm not mistaken the img's from spam isn't included in the email itself, but it's on a webserver, so if you simply count the number of send spam vs number of unique visitors to those img's you have the delivery rate, check those ip's against the ip's of the people following the link and you not only have the click-through rate, but you also have the number of people who click-through more then once ;-)

Re:5.6% Click-Through Rate?

Oh come on - surely you're not implying that spammers lie are you?

Re:5.6% Click-Through Rate?

No, I'm implying (actually saying flat-out) that spam filter vendors lie to the press, and the press (including Slashdot) eat it up like candy. This isn't the first and won't be the last "product placement" Slashdot article.

Backslash

I hope timothy [monkey.org] creates a backslash [slashdot.org] article on /. for this one! So we can talk about it twice [slashdot.org]!

In a word...

In a word... "duh".

What is going to grab anyone's attention more? "We ship quadraphexametaline to your door for a flat rate of $9.99 - click here to order" or "18 year old Mariana Gottemoff does immoral things with a bearclaw - click here to view"

Re:In a word...

No, no. This is the Internet. The proper word is "ORLY?".

Re:In a word...

What is going to grab anyone's attention more? "We ship quadraphexametaline to your door for a flat rate of $9.99 - click here to order"

Clearly, they're missing out on something here. They need shorter brand names to use instead of chemical names. Like "Ro

how to stop 99.99% of spam in the r.o.t.w

simply filter the $ symbol, i did this at home and spam disappeared overnight never to return and as my company has no dealings with anyone using that currency it didnt stop any legit mail from getting through

now if only Gmail would let me do the same we will be onto a winner

Couldn't RTFA

I've gone blind and can't see my monitor. Plus my palm is too hairy to click the mouse.

Its not just the spam, dial my sig...

I must be too old

I must be too old, all I get are c 1 a l a s and v 1 @ g r 4 SPAM. Perhaps if I bought some, then I'd start getting porn spam so I could put my prescription to good use...

A good one I received today

I have one email address that gets tons of spam everyday, here's a nice random grab (:

From: "Lauren Tom"
Subject: New and hot ladybo y see all of them
Date: Wed, July 5, 2006 11:28 pm

Hot and new s h e m a l e Recently added p
o r n Modern girls like to grant their wish with enormous frankfurters they have
rush inside and enjoy http://www.asianlb.com/ [asianlb.com] This woman has very huge bolt in her
pants She has knob under her dress and knows how to use it correctly
These exceptional ladies will bring Inimitable amusement for all who visits them
Keen scenes of ladyboys who divert near you are the best to observe

Key line from TFA

Mr. deSouza pointed out that many spammers work on contract for other people's businesses. "If you're contracted by a company that sells watches or drugs, you might be perfectly happy spamming about watches or drugs," he said.

Very true, and this is why I've said for a long time that if we ever want to do anything about spam, there's a way to do it without infringing on anyone's freedom of speech: follow the money. You have the right to send any e-mail you want, including spam, and that's the way it should be. You do not have the right to commit other crimes -- e.g. fraud, practicing medicine without a license, etc. -- just because it's "DIFFERENT, this is on the INTERNET." Go after the people who are paying the bills, and most of the "spam kings" will find themselves out of business in short order.

Re:Key line from TFA

You have the right to send any e-mail you want, including spam, and that's the way it should be.

No, you don't have that right, and you shouldn't. It's my mailbox, and you can't use it without my permission.

Go after the people who are paying the bills, an

Re:Key line from TFA

No, you don't have that right, and you shouldn't. It's my mailbox, and you can't use it without my permission.

If your MTA implements the SMTP protocol, then you've already given your permission. If you want it to be permissions-based, then don't support SMTP... use some other protocol which requires prior authentication. You're saying the equivalent of "they're my ears... you can't make any sounds towards me without my permission".
 

No just sex

Certainly sex has been at the heart of a lot of new industries -- Polaroid cameras, VCRs, Internet, camcorders but it isn't the only common thread shared by the spam in my 'junk' mailbox. Almost all of the offers are either illegal or of dubious legality. Fake Rolex watches, under-the-counter drugs, porn, financial scams. The thing that they all have in common is that they cannot advertise through legitimate channels. Spam is the electronic eqivalent of the guy in the trench coat hanging out in the dark alley who makes a furtive offer under his breath as you walk by.

Basic Human Needs

Porn spam is common and effective because sex is one of the basic human needs [wikipedia.org], so it's natural that more people are attracted to porn spam than Rolex watches for example. This is what first came to my mind when I read the title, and it turned out the article revolves around this idea.

The article requires login by the way, and BugMeNot [bugmenot.com] comes to the rescue.

Re:Basic Human Needs

I don't know that porn spam is all that common. Thanks to someone deciding to use my domain in their forged From: headers, I now get a couple of thousand spams per day. I don't read through them all (of course!), but the majority are for fake Rolex watches

Duh! Which would you click?!

Which would you click?

A man showing off his muscles with a shrunken dick in a 'ball-squizer' advertizing a big bottle with pills, or, spread leggs.

Hmmm, interesting idea...

Paul Judge offered the following towards an explanation: 'If you look at some of the oldest and most successful forms of business on earth, they revolve around sex.'"

Well, duh . :)

Look at how we were put together. Whether you're a Christian - "Go forth and multiply" - or simply following simple biological design, we were born to breed, all life is.

Using porn - the modern, supposedly "illicit" form of personal pleasure that doesn't involve the use of exterior drugs (not produced by the body) - marketing appeals to our basest instincts. How could it go wrong?

Re:Hmmm, interesting idea...

How could it go wrong?

Because the Magic Book says so.

Porn vs. Medicines

They also forgot to consider a few points: 1. Someone who wants prescription drugs will either buy on a pharmacy (usually cheaper), or probably ask someone they know before taking into account that weird email that sells X4N4*, z0l0f7 and other medicines.

Porn spam stories

From the looks of it, porn spam news items on Slashdot are a lot more successful than medical spam news items.

A very simple reason

With naked boobies, you can send a sample. Most people are already quite happy to LOOK at some of those milk bars, they needn't swallow to enjoy it.

It's different with pharmacies.

And, don't forget, there's always the hope that you might get free pr0n. Maybe just one or two pics, but hey! Free v14gr4, that's unheard of. Not even a pill.

Not that I'd need it, I just recently enhanced my malehood! I got a new sports car...

No kidding about porn...

I have been keeping tally on one of my 'freebie' accounts since June last year.

2005:
    Porn = 651
    Legit = 1,017
    Spam = 302
    Phishing = 59

So for for 2006:
    Porn = 1,587
    Legit = 870
    Spam = 1,713
    Phishing = 74

Gasp!

What? The internet is for porn? Say it ain't so!

Seriously, it's all people think about, though perhaps not actively. Sure we love technology, but even when I'm using Mac OS X every few seconds my brain strays to thoughts like "I wish I knew a beatiful woman who uses Mac OS X" or "wow, some naked female professional tennis players could really spruce up the next OS X commercial."

what if??

hmm, maybe the click rates would be higher if the drug ads offered free porn if you went to their website?

in any case this article is really missing the point - people just don't buy drugs over the internet - duh! drugs from an unknown source can be deadly

Of course it's 280

porn spam is 280 times more effective than spam advertising pharmacy drugs

I click on zero drug spams, and 280 times as much on porn spam. Who on earth falls for spam?! Don't they (the spams) shout "I will fool you!" high enough?

Spam battlefield?

I don't remember the last time I got spam... Yup, couple of weeks ago. It's hardly the problem it was.

 

Porn a distant second in my inbox

Apparently the spammers figure I'm blind or something (maybe from all the porn they think they sold me in the past?), because I'm getting more ringtone spam than anything else lately.

I just want to know...

Who told them I can't get it up and I'm underendowed?

Online drugs = huge risk

There is a gigantic risk when ordering pharmaceuticals over the Internet without the aid of doctors of pharmacists. You could easily end up with a pill that does nothing whatsoever or worse. Expired or fake drugs could cause serious injury or death. There is not that risk with online pr0n. People screw up their computers badly on some of these websites with spyware, but they generally live to tell about it unless the wife walks in.

Disclosure: I am currently employed by a pharmaceutical company, but my low opinion of buying drugs through spam pre-dates my employment.

Strange balance

I'm trying to figure out the balance here: All spammers ever offer me is porn and penis enlargement pills. What I want to know is, if all I'm doing is jacking off to porn, why the hell does it matter how big it is?

It's simple...

Let's face it... It's a visual medium. If Nigerian scam artists were hotter, and included photos, they'd probably get more traffic, and make more money.

Re:Makes sense

Yeah, but who wants to type a whole romance novel in which the heroine meets a bad boy, sleeps with him until they break up and return to reveal he has both a heart of gold and a boat full of it, too!

Re:Curious

Spam is like pollution and environmental destruction. It doesn't make any difference that you are wasting precious air, water and soil resources, so long as you get all the benefits, and somebody else pays most or all of the costs.

So, if somebody else is