http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/

From Scott Rosenberg's blog, dated 11-13-02

Spam-a-rama

Several years ago, when Salon's technology coverage was published under the now- antiquated label "21st," I assigned crack reporter Andrew Leonard to look under the hood of a spam operation. We published Spam Bombers in Sept., 1997. Spamming tools have only gotten more sophisticated since then, and the volume of spam has exploded.

Today's Wall Street Journal offers an interesting update on our old "Among the Spammers" feature, profiling a "spam queen" named Laura Betterly. It's a good piece (and this link will let you read it even if you're not a Journal subscriber -- thanks to Slashdot), but it left me with some questions. Ms. Betterly claims that her income from her spam business will be $200,000 this year. Yet each example of a particular spam deal or mailing cited in the article provides a measly payoff. The only deal that seems to offer substantial return -- $1,555 in commissions on one week's worth of mailing for a particular client, which Ms. Betterly somehow extrapolates to a total take of $25,000 -- is a spam message that, ironically, sells antispam software.

All of which just makes me wonder whether our friendly spammer is borrowing a page from the playbook of online porn merchants, who have been known to inflate their earnings.

-- Deana M. Holmes mirele@sonic.net

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