Almost 1 in 3 Have Bought From Spam
An eye-opening article at Direct Mag quotes from a study which found that 29% of Internet users have bought goods through a spam email.
The research study, conducted by online security company Marshal, found the most commonly purchased items were sexual enhancement pills and other adult material, software, jewelry and clothing.
Unfortunately, it looks like the percentage of people buying from spammers is increasing. In 2004, Forrester Research did a similar study, finding that 20% of those they surveyed reported purchased from spammers.
Marshall attributed the rise to the spammers’ ability to reduce their costs by using botnets, or networks consisting of thousands of infected personal computers, which are remotely controlled by criminals. Thanks to this, spammers have reduced or eliminated their need for their own servers because they can take control of other people’s computers.
Eighty percent of the world’s spam is accounted for by only five botnets.
Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse
