In 1994, the attorneys Canter and Siegel hired a programmer to automate a posting to every USENET newsgroup in existence, so that thousands of discussion groups devoted to every topic from Star Trek to board games were inundated with advertisements for services to help immigrants apply for the Green Card lottery. This software soon evolved into the first automated bulk emailer.
Immigration is to blame for spam! No wonder the Republican platform is against it.
From an article on The Economics of Spam, by Rao and Reiley.
Spam seems to be a truly extreme externality, in the sense that the ratio of external costs to private benefi ts is quite high. We estimate that American firms and consumers experience costs on the order of $20 billion annually due to spam. On the private-benefi t side, based on the work of crafty computer scientists who have in ltrated and monitored spammers’ activity… we estimate that spammers and spam-advertised merchants collect gross worldwide revenues on the order of $200 million per year. Thus, the “externality ratio” of external costs to internal bene ts for spam is greater than 100:1
11 Responses
RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/bF2Iq9lQ
The cost of spam. *Ahem* http://t.co/3pdP0D0w #blackhat
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RT @socialinfluence: American businesses and consumers spend $20 BILLION a year on dealing with spam RT@cblatts
A history of spam http:/ …
RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/bF2Iq9lQ
RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/bF2Iq9lQ
RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/bF2Iq9lQ
American businesses and consumers spend $20 BILLION a year on dealing with spam RT@cblatts
A history of spam http://t.co/gOobG3hr
Shocking numbers: RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/V9TyZVyX
RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/bF2Iq9lQ
RT @cblatts: A history of spam http://t.co/bF2Iq9lQ