So that this newsletter does not get trapped in your spam filter, we will use ‘p’ to represent a word that rhymes with corn.

CipherTrust recently released the results of a study that found that the click-through rate for spam depends heavily on its content. For example, the study found that 5% of the ‘p’-related spam that reaches end users’ mailboxes is opened by recipients - a phenomenal click-through rate compared to legitimate, opt-in e-mail. Other types of spam also get relatively high click-through rates, such as spam that advertises pharmaceuticals, which achieves a click-through rate of 0.02% and spam that advertises Rolex watches (0.0075%).

The study also found that a high-volume ‘p’ spammer can achieve a net income of between $20,000 and $60,000 per month, and needs to spend only about $3,000 per month to achieve this rate of return.

The study says three important things about the economics of spam. First, as we all know, spam is an incredibly profitable business, yielding gross profit margins of 85% to 95% based on the statistics offered by CipherTrust. Second, even though anti-spam technologies can block the vast majority of spam, it costs relatively little for spammers to dramatically increase the volume of spam they send in order to achieve their business goals. Third, while I’m not advocating a pay-per-e-mail scheme, it indicates that little else can alter the economics of spam to the point where spammers will be driven out of the business.

To illustrate my last point, consider the following: assume that a ‘p’ spammer can net $20 per sale and achieves one sale per 100 e-mails received. If a spammer had to pay 1 cent per e-mail, that would still give him or her $19 in profit on the sale. Now let’s say that anti-spam technologies could block an average of 95% of e-mail sent by this spammer. That would mean that the spammer would now have to send 2,000 e-mails to achieve a single sale. At a penny per e-mail, this would drive the spammer’s profit to zero. I realize that zombie networks and the like change this equation dramatically, but if we had a universal pay-per-e-mail scheme in which e-mail that was not paid for was simply blocked, perhaps spamming would decrease significantly.

Again, I’m not advocating a pay-per-e-mail system, but I think it could go a very long way toward eliminating spam. Any thoughts?