November 14th, 2008:

If you check your email account often, then you’ve most likely received unsolicited messages regarding various products. These are spam emails that are meant to entice you to click on the link and take you to a website where you can buy the products.

Studies conducted by some individuals from Berkeley and UCSD have found that it takes only one in 12.5 million conversions to make spam profitable. The researchers hijacked the Storm worm botnet, which is deemed responsible for around 20 percent of all spam. Dummy sites were set up in place of the real site, complete with inventories and shopping carts, but an error would result once a would-be customer presses the checkout button. This set-up allowed the researchers to study how spam interaction actually went. The researchers came up with a theory that the persons behind the creation of the sites were the ones who spearheaded the creation and use of spambots.

Other interesting findings include results on which of the popular free email clients are most effective against spam emails. It turns out that Hotmail was practically impermeable by spam emails, while Barracuda email accounts were the most susceptible to being infiltrated by spam. Gmail didn’t let in as much spam email as Barracuda, while Yahoo! succeeded in keeping out most spam emails.

Majority of the spam emails created by the Storm worm were sent to people in India, France, and the United States. The researchers believe that those who took the bait were probably not as educated about spam emails as those who did not respond to spam.

If you have a free email account, then you probably receive lots of spam emails every day. These spam emails may go directly into your spam folder, although there are some that get through spam filters of your email client and land in your inbox. These spam emails may contain viruses and spyware, or even be used for phishing. But why are these spam emails so prevalent?

* Spammers spam because spam email works. Although many people are careful not to open spam emails and delete them immediately, there are those who read spam emails and click on links. Advertisers gain revenue from these clicks and keep on sending spam emails to more individuals.
* Spammers keep spamming because sending spam emails is cheap. One of the main reasons why advertisers choose spam for publicity is that spam is very inexpensive. Sending emails is free, so spammers can send to as many people as they want. Even if only a very small percentage of recipients actually clink on their link, sending spam is still worth a try for them.

* Spammers send more spam because spam emails are hard to eliminate. Although Internet service providers and software companies are working to battle spam, there are still many people who choose to send unsolicited commercial emails to a large number of individuals. There are, however, some measures you can take to decrease the number of spam emails going to your email. When you spot spam emails, mark them as spam so that your email will recognize similar messages as spam too.