Profiting from spam

The makers of spam emails are turning huge profits, even if they only receive one response for every 12.5 million emails they send.

In a US study at the University of California, researchers used a computer network to run spam emails through controlled machines. They found even if the response rate to spam emails asking for credit card details was 0.00001%, it would result in a revenue level of $2731.88 for the email used.

The researchers estimate larger campaigns will net $US7000 a day, or more than $US2 million a year. But they say spam isn’t making the amount of money some may think.

“The profit margin for spam may be meager enough that spammers must be sensitive to the details of how their campaigns are run and are economically susceptible to new defences,” the report shows.