Chapter 16: Closing Comments

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A Reflection on Spamming

Marketing was originally governed by the amount of money a company was willing to spend on advertising. As everyone knows, money does not grow on trees; there has always been a fine balance in the amount of marketing and advertising companies will undertake. For that reason, advertising has never become an epidemic, since the majority of companies cannot afford to spend millions of dollars a year on it, and only the larger and more successful corporations can afford to broadcast their message globally. That is, until the Internet came along and changed everything. Marketing has grown in this fast-paced, idyllic environment—beyond anyone’s belief. Now any company can send its promotional marketing information worldwide, with almost no financial investment and very little workforce required to do so. Internet technology has changed advertising and marketing strategies forever. Now, for the first time, everyone can reach a global audience. Marketing costs are no longer an issue, and what used to be the realm of only giants such as Coke and Pepsi is now shared by all.

With this revolutionary form of communication, a kid in high school is capable of running the world’s most popular Web site but does not need a large fancy company with hundreds of employees—just himself and his computer. Literally anything is possible on the Internet. Such usability has removed the balance between cost and possible revenue that used to restrict a company’s marketing potential. It’s not surprising that many spammers are young, with the majority starting when they are in high school or college. They see spamming as an easy way to make some spare cash or pay off tuition costs. If the spammer becomes very successful at e-mail marketing, he or she will often turn professional, starting their own Internet marketing companies or sending spam full time.

If the Internet had significant costs associated with it, similar to those in our physical world, and advertisements were not free to send, spam (in its current form) would likely not exist. The majority of spammers wouldn’t pay 10 cents to send each spam e-mail. Nothing has stopped a spammer from printing paper flyers to promote his Viagra-selling Web site, but you never see such a flyer in your mailbox; that flyer would cost money to print and require physical effort to deliver. And though the spamming profession and its employees are often viewed in a negative light, for this modern age, spam has become another opportunity where a person can make easy money. Everyone needs money to live, and if selling Viagra makes a spammer enough money to pay the bills, many will do so. As with any product, you don’t have to buy it, but if you do, and if you have a keen eye to delineate the scams from the real spam, you are buying a legitimate product that meets your needs.



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Inside the SPAM Cartel(c) Trade Secrets From the Dark Side
Inside the SPAM Cartel: By Spammer-X
ISBN: 1932266860
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 79

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