Spam Is All Your Fault, Says Study

and viruses and spyware and ..... It's been going through the minds of IT people for years ;)

Quote:

---

But the most stunning statistic, said Radicati, was the last: more than 10 percent of the respondents have purchased products advertised in spam.

---

That's the way to teach those spammers a lesson...make them some money. :mad:

http://informationweek.securitypipel...news/159905059

Another link

http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...fm?NewsID=3383

Quote:

---

What the companies haven’t revealed is precisely how they calculated this startling 10 percent statistic, from what size of sample, and from what user constituency. Such detail will have to wait until the final report is made public, later in the month.

The statistic should, however, be taken in context. It could be taken to mean that over ten percent of users admit that at one time they have bought (or tried to buy) products advertised in spam. That does not mean that ten percent of product spam receives a sales enquiry, a highly implausible claim.

---

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

I have had a reasonable amount of experience with surveys and questionnaires and they are notoriously difficult to phrase such that they cannot be misinterpreted or "lead" a response. For example:

Q1: "have you ever bought anything advertised in a spam e-mail?"

Q2: "have you ever bought anything advertised in an unsolicited e-mail?"

Those are NOT the same question, even though many would define spam as "unsolicited e-mail"

You see my answer to Q1 would be "no" but to Q2 would be "yes"

The unsolicited e-mail is from people I have done business with before, and no I have not requested it, but sometimes the deals for previous customers are pretty good, because they want to build customer loyalty.

IMHO the 10% is way too high, unless the survey was in the perverts' wing of the local prison
:D

Just a thought?

I agree with Nihil: 1-2% of respondents is probably more accurate.

I know someone who specialized in testing (has masters degree to back it up) and told me about the tricks and traps of testing and surveys. Things to consider with this one...

* Question wording. Like Nihil said. Questions can either be badly worded or worded to skew the results toward one way or another. [...Blonde song just popped into my head...lol]

* Survey pool. Who was surveyed? How was the pool decided upon? What's the makeup of the pool (age, race, geographic/cultural, economic, yada yada yada). Again, this can be crafted to favor one answer to another.

* etc etc etc...you get the point

I do agree, however, with the theory that spam exists because people continue to purchase items advertised in the spam OR go to the websites advertised in spam. It's all about money. Sure, there are some covert stuff going on where people use spam for corporate espionage or political reasons etc, but from all that I've seen research-wise...it's about $$$.

[gotta go run now and order that bottle of Viagra for my ...err *friend*... since he's got a date this weekend :eek: ]

Wonder how much spam we'd see if a law was passed to fine the companys advertising via spam, instead of going after the spammer themselves. Make it no longer cost effective to put ads out that way, and I bet we'd see a huge drop.
Wouldn't have to be a big fine to be pretty convincing not to use spammer's services. How about a buck an ad?

I just think going after the spammer's is a huge waste of time, and having to use anti-spam filtering is a pretty big resource hog. You want to send out 100,000 emails advertising "secrets to a larger ______" (fill in the blank yourself), no problem, but for every user that complains about it, you get to pay them a buck.

Yeah I know, it would never work, but it is a nice fantasy about collecting a buck for each SPAM I am forced to weed thru and delete. :)

I am stumped as to why someone would purchase something from a company that knowingly utilizes an advertising technique that causes your computer, a large finacial investment for most people, to not function properly. it makes absolutly no sense to me at all. if anyone knows i would appreciate it if they would enlighten me.

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by Kite
I am stumped as to why someone would purchase something from a company that knowingly utilizes an advertising technique that causes your computer, a large finacial investment for most people, to not function properly. it makes absolutly no sense to me at all. if anyone knows i would appreciate it if they would enlighten me.

---

Ah but do they know it's SPAM. There's a lot of non-techie people on the Internet ya know....a lot! Further, the emails are made to look legit.

People buy stuff advertised in SPAM just like they buy from the Home Shopping Network, QVC, or any infomercial....and remember: humans are VERY curious people.

Kite

If you define spam as stuff you are not interested in or from a complete stranger then you probably would not buy............UNLESS..............it is something like pornography or pharmaceuticals ;)

What really gets to me is the deals that are offered only in "USA & Canada" yet they are sent to us in Europe...................reminds me, I once bought an AV product for a 60% discount by telling them that Harrow was in Canada (rather than a suburb of London, England) :D

Then there are the "get rich quick" programmes............these are aimed at the desperate, and will have a positive, albeit low, hit rate.



MrCoffee

Nice idea, but then business rivals would spam in eachother's names and disgruntled customers, ex-employees and so on would use it for revenge?

Also a lot of these outfits are offshore anyway, so how would you enforce it?

The only reason sapm exists is because it works, even a 1 or 2% hit rate is huge money. Too many gulible people in the world.

The issue is this, if it didn't work.... Would they still be doing it after all these years? Regardless of the numbers or respondents; 1 percent of 1 million emails is 10,000 - one would tend to think more than that are clicking the messages or at least looking at them. Based on that and my own experience with users, I could go higher into the 10 percent range?