How Spam Actually Works

No one will argue that spam in your inbox is just junk, not because it never actually says anything, but because it’s impossible to imagine that anyone can actually make money of misspelled words for medicine and penis-enlargers.

Turns out, that’s not entirely true. People do click, send money, and actually get products. Sorta.

A collection of scholars researched the phenomenon, gave credit card numbers, and bought pharmaceuticals, tracking the information exchance as it traveled the entire globe.

I wish I knew more about the internet so I could make more sense of this, but it’s a fascinating and worthwhile read.

Click Trajectories: End-to-End Analysis of the Spam Value Chain (PDF)

via BoingBoing