Comments.

Argh… The Spammers found me. I’ve had to moderate (delete) so many comments over the past week that I’ve had to change the comment rules. You have to be registered and logged in to post your comments on Pawned!. So live and learn, I say. Here’s an article from the Modern Life is Rubbish website on why we see so much Viagra spam…Rich

There’s no escaping spam these days. Even with the best Bayesian filters, blacklists and other filtering techniques, most of us are still plagued with an endless stream of invitations for all sorts of weird and wonderful products and services. One of the most common forms is advertising for pharmacological products – and perhaps the most notorious form is for the ‘men’s health’ variety- notably Sildenafil citrate, more commonly known as Viagra. But how do spammers make their money?

In the US, Viagra is available via prescription only, and will cost around $10 per pill. Pfizer still control the production and distribution of Viagra in the US, so in essence they can control this price to maximise profit and to recoup the cost of development.

However, in certain countries (for instance, India and Mexico), the patent on Sildenafil citrate has expired – meaning that it can be manufactured in these countries very cheaply indeed. Pharmacy websites have sprung up to act as a channel for distribution, likely operating outside of the USA, and charging in the region of $2 per pill – and at nearly a fifth of the cost to the US consumer, this mode of distribution is a very popular way to buy Viagra online.

With this profit comes great competition, however, so off-shore pharmacy sites have resorted to one of the most popular forms of product marketing on the internet – affiliation. With massive profit margins to fall back on, pharmacy companies can easily offer commission rates of around 40% to their affiliates – a very tempting offer to some people.

Affiliation of this nature is ideally suited to spam – the affiliates are legally separate from the online pharmacy, so the pharmacy itself is in no way liable for the illegal bulk email – the onus there falls to the mysterious spammer, likely hid behind false identities and proxy servers. Obviously, for the pharmacy this is ideal – and it provides an ideal opportunity for spammers to make a quick profit.

Click rates for email campaigns are difficult to know exactly – it largely depends on the campaign, the success in evading email filters, and the format of the email itself. However, generally speaking it is very low – reports suggest a typical figure of around 0.02%. Supposing the spammer sends 1 million emails in a day – not an unlikely figure given the ease of sending email – this means the spammer can expect to see 200 clicks through to the online pharmacy store.

Conversion rates are likely to be much higher – I would expect 1% to be a typical figure, but again, this can vary between campaigns. At this figure, then, the spammer can expect to see a handful of orders per million emails. Typical order values are quite high though – price breaks help push the lowest viable purchase to at least $100. If we assume $100 as the average transaction, 40% commission means the spammer will net $80 per million emails sent – all considered, not a bad return.

Of course, there are running costs involved – DSL lines, computers, email lists – but assuming the spammer can send a million emails a day, he/she will earn $29,200 per year – not a bad sum, considering the minimal work involved.

And if you scale up the figures – say the spammer has the capacity to send 5 million emails a day, and the capability to attain the same sort of conversion ratio, then the potential yearly earnings are $146,000 – an impressive amount by any standards.

Of course, there’s a lot of competition out there – and only a limited number of erectile dysfunction sufferers, so these figures have to bottom out somewhere. As spam filters get better, conversion ratios will drop, so the harder a spammer has to work to hit those targets. I’m not confident in the example figures quoted in this article – there are too many factors to accurately predict conversion ratios and conversion rates. But, my email inbox will attest to the same – there certainly must be more than a few individuals out there making a living from this virtual form of ‘hard’ drug pushing. And all it takes is a few emails…

View story at the modernlifisrubbish website.

100 Chess Book Reviews by Blue Devil Knight – Part 3.

BDK’s youtube series describing his library of chess books continues.

Previous Book Review Videos -

Part 1. Part 2.

Check out his blog – Confessions of a Chess Novice.

100 Chess Book Reviews by Blue Devil Knight – Part 2.

BDK’s youtube series describing his library of chess books continues. Here’s part 1.

Check out his blog – Confessions of a Chess Novice.

A Very Different Bobby Fischer.

Blogs such as Susan Polgar’s Chess Blog, ChessVibes, Boylston Chess Club, and other Chess sites have posted links to the Dick Cavett blog entry, Where Mr. Cavett recalls his interviews and meetings with Fischer. I’ve resisted posting anything more on Fischer, only because there has been so much coverage on the other sites, much of it redundant, most of it concentrating on the less than admirable traits of the Chess Champ. But I found this video, as well as the Cavett blog post, a pleasant look into a more relaxed Fischer, less guarded, and much more pleasant to watch than his rants which came later in life.

I’m sure some analysts could watch this and pick up on certain characteristics that could have foretold, well… whatever. But I hope you’ll all see this and just take it for what it is – a relaxed Bobby Fischer, talking about Chess.

…Rich

Youtube video from ScareTV.

More Chess Blog Respect to Edwin Meyer.

The winner of the January 6 post “Who Is He?” is Edwin Meyer. I’ve actually referred to his web site in a previous blog respect post in October, but take note that his blog URL has changed since that post was published.

Ed is from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For more, check out his “About Me” page.

We actually have a few things in common. Like Ed’s bio mentions, I also have no official rating. Fischer is our hero. We both can, and do, drink coffee all day. I also have a huge movie collection (Woody Allen and Al Pacino are a couple of my favorites).

I also have a few Chess books, but my list is nothing near what Ed has in his chess bookshelf – I’m in envy!