But only if they're related to your costume or making another costume for another client.

Maybe you should put a sign on the computers saying to beware of ID theft, not to give out ANY personal information etc.. Not that he would read it, but at least you wouldn't have to babysit him all the time. You could simply say did you read that sign? and he'd say well yeah, and you say that is a RULE not a suggestion heh

@Brent Woodle: Your quote references the US. Cristiana was talking worldwide. I think it's a reasonable estimate. Even if your spam filter is such that you never get spam, somebody had to program the filter. Somebody had to build and maintain the infastructure to handle all the spam. It adds up.

@Shoelace:
that's an excellent idea!

I bet that 11% of those "clickers" are the users of the company I work at!

I've had Gmail for 3 years and I've had literally 3 spam emails out of thousands (I don't bother to look at them and let them pile up.)

I never got spam until I really used it (I had hotmail before I got Gmail and it took me a little bit of time to switch.)

So how do they stay in biz?"

They're not on a pay-per-click system for bulk spam. At least not the smart ones. You buy spam services from someone that can provide it. Someone may for example say, "I can provide you with whatever you want. 1 million per hour, 2 million,..." etc. Different price points depending on the package. Buyer buys a spam package, spammer spams for a fee. The fees are usually pretty substantial because maintaining bulletproof servers for spam is expensive. And it does pay off. You send that much out, you will get a return. Guaranteed.

no, I know what spam is. But what I wonder is if the people filling out the survey did.

From TFA: A 2004 survey estimated that lost productivity costs Internet users in the United States $21.58 billion annually

I've been using the Internet and working in an environment with an e-mail client for a long, long time and I can't say that I've lost any productivity to spam.

I used to volunteer with special needs adults in a computer lab. Some of them just did not understand the concept of spam, no matter how much you try to explain it. They're just excited that someone is emailing them and will read every single word. Sometimes they'll click on them, sometimes they'll reply.

When he gets an unsolicited email stating he has won X amount of money, he gets really excited and wants to know right away how he can claim it. When we tell him it's not real and he should delete it, he gets angry and frustrated, as if we're impeding his chances of striking it rich.

We have these conversations on a daily basis with him.

"Hey mom- those cars were a great idea! Where did you think of that?"

"Well, I got an email about them a few weeks ago, and I just ordered them right then and there."

(suspicion growing)

"...You got an email from one of your friends?"

"It was some advertisement."

"Noooooooooo!"

You can imagine how the rest of the conversation went after that.

And to continue our report on "Duh" Science Results, telemarketers continue to call because someone, somewhere is buying their sh**.

I actually think that the promoter/spammer/botmaker is often the one making money rather than the merchant anyway--they promise some schmuck that they'll get the email out to millions of people, and the fact that most of 'em block it and nobody buys anything doesn't change the fee.

[www.npr.org]

This happened to me when I got an iTunes gift card for my birthday. Within hours of giving Apple a temporary email address (I do this for everyone) I was bombarded with Viagra, Cialis and advanced fee scams.

I've received a lot of spam on various e-mail addresses that you can tell they just went through alphabetic permutations, and my particular combination of letters happened to be a valid e-mail address.

(Although weirdly enough, one never-yet-used e-mail account -- I created it in my married name, and I won't be married for another 10 weeks, it's just a placeholder -- seems to attract loads of spam but ONLY in Chinese. I have yet to figure out this mystery.)

"Too clueless to even realize that they are clueless."

I'm curious, the "the 18-24 crowd has a strong desire to "see what would happen"

This may generate pay-per-click revenue, but unless they actually buy a product, the company makes no money, only the promoter of the company.

So how do they stay in biz?

And a few times, I am guilty of clicking on spam, (to tell the widow of the Nigerian prince I am VERY interested in helping her...). 100% of the time, the email is returned as invalid.

If you did not give the permission explicitly, AND there is no way to unsubscribe from their emails, that is spam even though you regularly use their products. (Though admittedly, it is not the "impress her with your Klingon" kind of spam, and is in more of a gray area.)

@P_Smith: Some sites and email programs have a whitelist option. That way only email addresses in the list get through.

The fact that only 12% of computer users are that clueless is a bit of a step up in my opinion. Maybe regular computer users are a slight shade better than the general populace?

My theory stems from a rather idle observation of various polls and statistics on a number of topics.

The 12% figure seems awfully high for actually spam...

It says that 12% have responded to spam because they were "interested in product/service."

NO! NOOOOO!

These people need to be beaten in the head with a ClueBat®.

ClueBat®
When idiots need to get a f---ing clue.

Oddly enough most of our spam is in Russian or Hungarian.

The mortgage meltdown happened because frauds promoted bad loans to people who didn't know any better. Why be surprised that there are people dumb enough to believe spam? The spammers piss me off, but I get just as annoyed by "free" email services.

I have long suspected (though there's no proof of it) that these email providers sell the account names of users to spammers. I've created email accounts, never used them except to login once, and within days started receiving spam - the account name was never used or posted elsewhere. Some people tell me it's "intercepted data" or "site cookies" that are the problem, but it wouldn't surprise me if the email providers were deliberately selling addresses for revenue.

As well, most email provider still "block spam" by targeting email addresses, rather than the contents of the email; as long as the new address is forged, the same garbage will repeatedly show up. Even allegedly "strong" filters on certain sites (e.g. google) are somtimes/often bypassed and junk emails get through. No matter how many keywords you put in, the spammers still inundate you with their crap.

I've written to such email providers but all are too arrogant to respond and/or too lazy to implement filters that allow wildcards. Failing that, I'd like to have the choice of an "approved" list rather than a "banned" list: the only emails that get through are those you permit from specfic people, not possible "cold" emails from anyone.

I'm the opposite. I don't care if it's the best IT item I've ever seen. If they spammed me to show me it, I don't want any part of it.