Meet Average-Joe spammer
It’s tough being an average-Joe spammer these days. Divorced and in his 40s, Mike has two kids to help support, a skyrocketing home heating bill, and a mortgage. And spamming just isn’t paying the bills like it used to.
In the heyday of his spamming career, from 1997 to 2000, profiting from sending out unsolicited bulk email was easy, Mike says. In an average month he made US$40,000 (NZ$57,828) pelting millions of inboxes with spam. Now, he complains, spam filters have become too effective and block most of his email. Also, he adds, spamming for a living has become increasingly risky, as evidenced by recent arrests of spammers and fines imposed on them. He himself is currently being sued by a large ISP for using illegal methods for sending spam, he says.
