Who exactly are the dufuses who are clicking on any kind of spam these days? Aside from Senator Ted Stevens. For research purposes, of course, on what’s getting sent via his Internet tubes.
Seems Somebody Is Clicking on That Spam
Spam messages promoting pornography are 280 times as effective in getting recipients to click on them as messages advertising pharmacy drugs, which are the next most effective type of spam.
The third most successful variety is spam advertising Rolex watches, 0.0075 percent of which get clicked on, according to an analysis by CipherTrust, a large manufacturer of devices that protect networks from spam and viruses.
“Successful spam is about impulse purchases,” said Francis deSouza, a vice president at Symantec, which makes antivirus software. “Things like home mortgages have a lower success rate than things you’d buy on impulse. Things like Viagra, porn.”
Paul Q. Judge, chief technology officer of Ciphertrust, was philosophical. “If you look at some of the oldest and most successful forms of business on earth, they revolve around sex,” he said.
If spam is effective with porn, why bother selling anything else? 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.
This is what has always bothered me about spam. If there wasn’t some idiot out there clicking on spam and then actually making a purchase we would have 0 spam.
What person with enough brain cells in their head to actually operate a computer would fall for these scams?
BdgBill…
Lowest common denomonator… ALWAYS bet on the LCD…
The same people that click on spam are the same 70 million that M$ will not give critical support for their Win9x series OS’s.
The same people that click on spam are the same 70 million that M$ will not give critical support for their Win9x series OS’s.
chris, you certainly make a presumptuous statement. So you’re a neo-con, bed wetter, diddling, HIV carrier. I don’t see anyone ridiculing or slurring you for your life choices.
Lets take 1,000,000 people.
60% of these either do not have, Want or dont know HOW to use a computer, OR have a computer but NOT on the net.
Thats a WHOPPING 400,000 LEFT(40%) that USe a computer AND use it on the internet.
OUt of that number, LETS say 2%, KNOW and understand computer.
NOT just HOw to turn it on, NOT how to push the buttons and watch the pretty lights, NOT just wander the net. AT LEAST C grade HARDWARE and SOFTWARE(BASIC system protection)…Thats about 800, with 392,000 LEFT.
THOSE 8000 may protect about 10 EACH systems for the OTHER 98%, WHICH is about 80000, with warnings and updates, and Explainations of HOW to keep it up, 1 GOOD recovery, and them learning that EVERYTHING was lost, and making them FELLING REAL guilty, and haveing THEM SIT and watch a FULL recovery, and how long it takes.
Full LOSS and recovery, and having them SIT threw it, is a WONDERFUL learning lesson(FOR THEM).
thats about 22%(88000) with 78% (31,2000)of the ORIGINAL 40%(400,000), of 1,000,000 are REALLY protected.
WE do have to say that, OF the 312,000 FROM 1,000,000 persons, SOME may/ARE protecting themselves, but STILL do not know HOW to protect themselves, FULLY.
Between ALL the tricks that have been INCLUDED with IE, popup, popunders, System tagging(reading your location from system info, WHICH SHOULDNT BE THERE), Email trolling, and so many others…
The INTERNET is NOT anonomous ANYMORE.
Im talking about free services, and NOT the SALES corps that come out to tell Customers, AFTER they fix the computer….It will cost you MORE money to keep this from happening AGAIN, and we will charge you EVERY MONTH, and you have to UPDATE stuff.
IM NOT talking CORP system, as if they get an infection, IT WAS THEIR FAULT.
WHO do we get to blame…Or do we pass this on to the NEXT guy,
WE all did this in the beginning, and we have learned(its the best way).
cellphone spam is a real issue right now for the company i work for – and ya know, people always call in complain – if I was gettin porn sent to me on my phone, the last thing i’d do is complain
7,
YES on many points.
those numbers are the ones I have heard.,
As to where you live, HOW many KNOW that it is the LAW that they are SUPPOSED to have a copy of the OS…ANd not one of them does.
As to cars?? YES, they should.
figure I have a 20 year old car, ITS AN OLDSMOBILE, this is NOT a small car. AND I get 30-35 mpg at 70 mph…Why cant the CHEAP new SMALL cars get better?
Let me ask only a few questiuons question. do you KNOW why you want more then 1 partition on a hard drive??? YOU SHOULDNT.
Do you/they have a 40 gig drive?? WHY?? they havent been made in 5 years. And for the SAME price it SHOULD have been at LEAST 100gig.. UNLESs it was FREE, if it was, WHY NOT have 2? If they bought ANYTHING besides a clone, they got SHOt in the foot, for what they paid.
Waiting list…
It could be nice, but, MARKETERS are trying to SELL the internet to EVERYONE, free meeting on HOW to start your OWN sites… STOP them first.
ECA, you really need to get a keyboard with a shift key that works correctly.
I’ve had a huge drop in spam since going to gmail. Not sure why, but it sure makes me happy. My old MSN account is so dam full of spam I take 30 minutes to go through it all to check for ligetimate emails, and thats with the so-called bulk mail spam drop.
ECA, You totally missed the point. They bought these computers with Windows already set up. It doesn’t matter if they are Dell, HP, or a clone. It doesn’t matter if the HD is 15 or 160 Gigs. It doesn’t matter if the OS came on a disk. It doesn’t matter what configuration they have. What matters is they are basically computer illiterate. They know how to do the basics. That is what they bought five years ago or last week, and that is what they have. This fits the vast majority of computer owners.
Last night, a friend pulled me aside and asked if I would take a look at their PIII, 500 eMachine. Something happened and now it won’t boot up. They don’t play games, edit video, or design aircraft with it. They surf the internet, email, and write homework on it. They don’t need the latest, most powerful, all the bells and whistles Alienware. They are very happy and demand no more then what they have. And if I can’t find out what is wrong, I have an old Athalon 1.1 with a 20 Gig HD not doing anything I’ll give them. Now I do video and photo editing so of course I demand much more for my needs. But their needs don’t require more then the minimum.
As to your question about partitioning, it depends. While there may be advantages, such as a double boot or back-up, I don’t think there are any serious disadvantages. It is more of a personal choice based upon need.
And if you can afford a computer and internet connection, you can afford $25 bucks for another keyboard.
Smitty and Fusion, in case you didn’t know, ECA does that weird capitalization thing on purpose. He claims it makes it easier for him to read! I think it seriously dilutes any credibility he might have in his ideas when they are presented in a way to make him look like a loon. I’ve pretty well given up reading his posts because they are so hard to read. So have others. Others telling him this on other posts hasn’t gotten through.
I checked the original article with frustration.
I wonder what percent of the “clickers” are guys hoping to see free porn on a welcome page?
Another very important number is how many actually purchase the porn.
The other number I’d like to see is how many “click throughs” are minors. I’ll bet it is very high.
12, it does get threw, but you still see the posts.
And have noticed others useing someof my puntuations.
11, Thats my point.
They DONT know what they have, what someone sold them, or how much they paid for Old tech.
Its amazing how many business persons have a computer they dont know how to Fix, configure, or defrag. How to set a Drive cache, How NOT to go past 80% of drive use, How NOT to ever get to 100%+ drive use(try it, its FUN). They know how to install programs, and load them to the gills, and NOT turn them off from starting at boot, then they call us, because they loaded all the ‘Stuff’ and cant figure why there system isnt working.
Bare DELL/HP system with ALL the free stuff, trialware, demowares, and so forth. That I strip off the computer is 1/2-3/4 of the drive size, and all loads on boot.
They dont know that the AV progs and Anti Virus installed are a pain to clear off, and are not the best, and most helpful program(unless you like norton).
They dont know that 40 gig drive is over 5 years old, and costs as much as a NEW 100+ gig.
Partitions:
Are cool. esp if you have that digital camera, or do alot of Letters, and want them ALOT safer then in the C:\ where most Virus and bots Inbed themselves and cause MOST havoc.
So, is linux any easier??
After its setup under 1 persons NEEDS, and a few wants…Its SOLID(90%)…
It wont change your DEFAULT video player, unless YOU tell it to, and KNOW you are doing it. It wont change the Audio player, same reason. It wont grad and adjust things after you DL some game, unless you want it to. And for the Basics, its great. Even WinOS is great, until you get to the internet, and IE has been designed as a SPONGE to let anyone with a web page to install ANYTHING they want with alittle bit of knowledge.
The scary part here is that for this spam effort to earn any return on investment the click through percentage has to be way high. The clarion call of “CLICK ME!” must be nearly irresistable to a frightening percentage of computer users.
15,
NAH,
They only need 1% click thru to get any money.
when you can do saturation, about 10,000,000 sends, and 1% hits. ANY company would love you. Each hit costs, 0.35-$1.
But, there are laws against spamming.
Esp, with pop ups, pop unders, Pop this and that, and I wont mention the trackers that get installed, they can overwhelm a system.. Just to show you GOT their advert.
16, RE: 15; Makes me think that perhaps I should toss ethics and pride to the winds and add some click through crap to my site. I am, after all, a capitalist. Add a few naked chicks, maybe a pornographic short story or two and some naughty graphics and watch those servers jump.