Would you believe that I had 286 e-mails this morning?!? 279 of them were spam, including 24 phishing attempts. About a third of the spam - 86 - were for pornographic websites, and more than half of those - 47 - had curse words in the subject line. Ever wonder why you get so much spam? It's because it costs the sender nothing to send it, and for every person who clicks, this is how much money they get:
Hard to believe? Here's some FAQ's on the subject:
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How can they send all that spam for free? Who's paying for the bandwidth?
The vast majority of spam (over 97%) is sent from compromised Windows computers. These are computers that have downloaded a small program that calls home every so often, gets a new e-mail address list and some new spam messages, and sends them out.
Why do people allow their computers to send spam?
The owners of compromised computers usually do not know that their computer is sending spam. It is estimated that over two-thirds of computers running Windows operating systems have some form of malware running on them. Much of that malware is sending spam.
Is that illegal?
In the United States, Europe, and most of the civilized world it is illegal to write and distribute malware. However, it is very difficult to catch the offenders. And the financial rewards are enormous.
Do people really click on spam?
There are no accurate figures available, but estimates are that between 0.05% and 0.2% of spam email gets clicked on. That means that if a spammer sends 100 million spams in a month (a conservative figure), he will get between 50,000 to 200,000 clicks. At $4 per click that's $200,000 to $800,000 per month. How much do you earn in a month? That's with a very, very slim chance of being caught, and an even slimmer chance of being prosecuted. And nobody gets hurt, right?
Nobody gets hurt, right?
Google the subject to see how much money anti-spam efforts cost. The figures rise incredibly fast, and any figure that I put here will be out of date by the time you read this.
Who's responsible?
Who wrote the operating system that allows software to install itself without the user's knowledge and to run silently in the background?
Online Casino Spam Mails Online
Why doesn't Microsoft stop allowing software to install itself and to run silently in the background?
Because at Microsoft that behaviour is considered a feature, not a bug. It makes software installation very easy for the end user. Have you ever tried to install software on Linux, for example? You have to enter a password to install software on Linux! Who would want that?
That's really Microsoft's viewpoint?
In Windows XP users can set up their machines to require passwords for software installation, by using an administrator's account. But that behaviour is not the default setting. Also, much Windows software will not run properly if installed by an administrator.
Whenever you sign up with an online casino you need to make sure that you check or uncheck the boxes relevant to how much contact you want from the casino. They will usually send you emails and text messages which you can opt out of.
It is vital that you sign up with a trusted casino however as unscrupulous casinos do sell your details. We have blacklisted casinos who do this as well as casinos who are over the top with their spamming. Here are some examples of the bad spammers we have encountered:
1) Fortune Lounge Casinos: These guys are the only ones we have encountered who actually send out flyers by snail mail. They send them out even to people not holding any accounts with any of their casinos. Intertops have also now started sending snail mail out regularly.
2) Grand Parker: This casino group phone you up constantly (at least twice per week) and it seems impossible to get off their call list. As an example they called me twice on Christmas eve and once on boxing day. Very bad form. I never even held an account with them! Thankfully they have since been closed and the owners sent to prison (for other major crimes and fraud)!
3) Spam e mailers: Christmas eve, Christmas day and Boxing day should be days for family, shopping, eating and drinking too much. Not for being hounded by online casinos. We received countless emails from these casinos over the 3 days: GrandParker, GoWild, Casino1920, Blu Casino, Vegas Nights, GrandMacao, etc. We do not hold any accounts with any of these casinos and have great difficulty in getting off their mailing lists.
Online Casino Spam Emails
4) There are some casino portal sites who gather your email addresses for their mailing lists. Don’t do it. Don’t sign up to any, you just don’t know who you can trust or not. There are some which will sell your details on to database websites, to casinos and so on and so forth. You are only one mailing list away from being bombarded by all sorts of spam and even casino portals who send emails out pretending to be from casinos. This is just not right.