Internet and e-mail policy and practice
including Notes on Internet E-mail


2006
Months
Jun

Click the comments link on any story to see comments or add your own.


Subscribe to this blog


RSS feed


Home :: Email


08 Jun 2006

How much money do spammers make? Email

News reports say that high profile Ryan Pitylak was fined $10 million by the Texas Attorney General. A few days ago, he paid a $1M settlement to Microsoft. Since it had been widely reported that he'd made between $3M and $4M during his spamming career, that seemed like a pretty good deal for him. As I commented to the San Antonio Express, this new fine is more in line with what he did, and at least relieves him of all his ill-gotten gains.

One of the unfortunate realities of spam is that if you have no morals and are willing to take the legal risks, you can make a whole lot of money quickly, much more than spammers could make otherwise. Jeremy Jaynes, the spammer who Virginia and AOL put in jail, made over $10M from bogus Federal Express refund kits. From what I saw of him at the trial, it was hard to imagine him making significant money legitimately.

The positive news here is that the law is able to go after big spammers where it hurts, in the wallet. But the bad news is that the mechanism for doing so is cumbersome, and only is workable against to the largest spammers. At the moment, there are enough big spammers that they're the main targets, but for a thousand spammers making $100K apiece, the enforcement won't work.


posted at: 11:14 :: permanent link to this entry :: 3 comments
posted at: 11:14 :: permanent link to this entry :: 3 comments

comments...        (Jump to the end to add your own comment)

usozqlqagi
Muchas gracias. ?Como puedo iniciar sesion?

(by itvvznxgtu 01 Sep 2021 15:03)


mlrkerfwtg
Muchas gracias. ?Como puedo iniciar sesion?

(by tlmjjsgmub 14 Oct 2023 06:21)


mpifwqbhor
Muchas gracias. ?Como puedo iniciar sesion?

(by kowedfwcfc 27 Nov 2023 05:54)


Add your comment...

Note: all comments require an email address to send a confirmation to verify that it was posted by a person and not a spambot. The comment won't be visible until you click the link in the confirmation. Unless you check the box below, which almost nobody does, your email won't be displayed, and I won't use it for other purposes.

 
Name:
Email: you@wherever (required, for confirmation)
Title: (optional)
Comments:
Show my Email address
Save my Name and Email for next time

Topics


My other sites

Who is this guy?

Airline ticket info

Taughannock Networks

Other blogs

CAUCE
It turns out you don’t need a license to hunt for spam.
5 days ago

A keen grasp of the obvious
Italian Apple Cake
563 days ago

Related sites

Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail

Network Abuse Clearinghouse



© 2005-2020 John R. Levine.
CAN SPAM address harvesting notice: the operator of this website will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by this website to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages.