The main drive behind spam is money. This is not how much it cost to get spam,
but rather how much the spammer is getting for sending it.
Let's check just one of the many spamming profit models: spam via zombie PCs.
- Get control of as many as possible PCs anywhere on the globe. This is done via
malware distributed in one of several ways, including spam.
- Assume that you gain control over 100,000 PCs and that you can get $1 for 10,000
messages each sent to one recipient.
- Assume each PC can send 10 messages per minute.
This is: 100,000 PCs x 10 Recipients/Minute/PC x $1/10,000 per message = $100/Minute.
This is $6,000/Hour or $144,000/Day or $1,008,000/Week!
Over one million dollars every week!
During one week that system will produces over 10,000,000,000 messages. This is over
10 Billion messages per one week from one spammer!!! One Billion is a thousand million
or milliard.
Conclusion: $1 million per week is a strong incentive for sending spam and getting
control over innocent PCs is one way to do that.
Note: innocent users, having PCs, could be prosecuted by law enforcing authorities
for spamming or even worse activities ....