Data Points: Profiting From Spam E-Mail

Computer scientists infiltrated a spam network to conduct spam campaigns and study how spammers make money

By U.S. News Staff

November 13, 2008 RSS Feed Print
  • 350 million: Number of spam E-mails sent using the Storm spam network advertising a fake online pharmacy site
  • 28: Number of sales that would have resulted from the 350 million E-mails, all but one for male enhancement products*
  • Less than 0.00001%: Response rate of the E-mail campaign
  • $2,731.88: Revenue that would have resulted from the 28 sales
  • $7,000 per day or $3.5 million per year: Revenue the researchers estimate the Storm spam network takes in

*The site returned an error message when visitors clicked a button to submit credit card details and make a purchase

Sources: University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego; BBC

Tags:
advertising,
internet

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