jvanbrecht
join:2007-01-08
Bowie, MD
| reply to Wills
Re: Pyrrhic Defeat
You appear to have some understanding of how spam works, but are incorrect in the assumption that it is all the fault of the products being advertised.
Here is the issue. Most companies offer an affiliate program, where by you sell the product, or get a user to connect to the products site (I am not talking advertising clickthru sites, more like, to use your example, www.symantec.com/blah/affiliate_id=34235 where the user with id 34235 gets a small chunk of change everytime someone clicks it and even more when a user purchases the product). Of course, this assumes that they (spammers/nefarious affiliate user) are selling legal versions, and not chinese fakes of the same product, which most spam does.
Now these affiliate programs are fine, if they are run correctly. In the past, atleast at UUNET (prior to MCI and Verizons involvement), we took down the spammer (if it originated from a UUNET pop, or notified the downstream customers if it was one of their users, if they do not respond, after numerous notifications and a discussion with UUNETs legal dep, that customer would have its line shut down, and yes, we did do it, even though it took a while sometimes). Additionally, we would go after the content of the email, sites advertised etc, and shut those down as well.
With regards to affiliate type deals, we notified the provider of that affiliate service (sometimes the vendor itself, sometimes third parties), and under ideal situations, they cancel that affiliates account and with hold any payments due to them. That worked great with larger companies, not so much with smaller ones who went from ISP to ISP after their accounts got canceled.
Basically, what it comes down to, the majority of spam now days seems to be hocking illegal pharmaceuticals, pirated software, fake products and porn. Now with porn, they actually do cancel affiliate accounts quickly for fear of losing their own access, which has happened, for the others, its illegal content in the first place, and going after Symantec for their spammed Norton AV which is probably a knock off in the first place will not resoilve the problem.
Spam is a complex problem, there is no simple solution... when you come up with a viable one, you will be rich, until then, just suck it up and do your part. |
