Intellectual Defenestration

Wired on Comment Spam

I received my first taste of comment spam by some .... well, I won't say .... who told me I had a nice site and should buy a certain male performance enhancing drug.

I've been wondering what the point was of that. Surely nobody actually clicks through. In fact, if there's any audience who's most likely already seriously pissed at spammers, its probably bloggers, who would tend to be more tech-savvy and experienced and also appreciate blogging as a way to post information without resorting to a ton of emails.

This article from Wired cleared up some of my questions. Apparently its not as much about generating click-throughs as it is a feeble attempt at generating better search engine results.

My fundamental question of spamming is still unanswered, though: how do spammers make money off of this? Nothing is done without some sort of profit motive (outside of the government, which has other motives), so there has to be a way spamming is financially worth all of the hate generated towards them. But, who in heaven, earth, hell, or purgatory buys "enhancement drugs" based upon an email?

It still seems to me that the best way to defeat spam is not to enact pointless legislation that will only make normal people's lives worse, but to simply make spamming financially unprofitable. DON"T BUY ANYTHING SOLD VIA SPAM.

October 24, 2003 12:51 PM