subject: Less Spam Please! [print this page] Who is sending out all the spam? Why in the world are they doing it? The answer to 'why' comes down to money. It's about profit. Why else would people send out millions or even billions of spam each day? Go who question is a little more complex.
In 2003 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) created the Can-Spam Act. Legitimate businesses are the source of a small portion of spam. They either don't understand or don't follow the rules laid out by the FTC. However criminals are responsible for the vast majority of spam. These e-mails can be grouped into four basic categories.
Infections -- these e-mails will lure you into clicking on links or opening attachments. Either action will get you infected. The links lead to a poisoned website. The attachments download malware into your computer. These criminals have hundreds of ways to trick you into clicking on a link or opening an attachment. A minute you do, you'll be infected, only to risk your identity, your money, and even control your computer.
Sales Attempts -the products offered for sale are usually pharmaceuticals, counterfeit jewelry, or some body enhancement product. The prices are too good to be true - for good reason. These e-mails often provide no product at all. At best any product you do receive will be poor quality or a complete fake.
Phishing - these e-mails attempt to fool you into divulging sensitive information. They appear to come from legitimate organizations. If the criminals can trick you into giving up this information they can steal usernames, passwords, and often your money.
Scam Attempts - these e-mails are an effort by criminals to begin a conversation. They attempt to do this by spinning a story that hooks you with curiosity, greed, compassion or other emotion. Once the conversation begins, they will spin more stories, and use promises, threats or anything else to convince you to send them money for one cause or another.
In the end, the billions of spam sent daily are all about money. Often the criminals are using our own computers against us to send spam, and then more spam. If 2 billion spam costs little more than 1 billion spam, the spammer says "Why not?
