What happened to the porno spam?

[Rube E. Tewesday]

Back in the day, when spam was still getting into my inbox, it practically all seemed to be young women doing...er...interesting stuff. Now, when I occasionally check my gmail account to see if anything has been wrongly sent to "spam", everything in the spam folder seems to be people selling either fake university degrees or fake rolexes. No skin in sight. I'm not complaining, but I'm curious. Is this a general phenomenon? Does Google have a way of blocking porn before it even makes it to the spam folder? Whither the" two hot young girls want your cum" of yesteryear?

[Ensign Edison]

I suspect it's just one of the easiest subjects to filter for, but I'll ask my friend who fights spam for gmail later tonight and make a more useful response.

[Ensign Edison]

Here's what I found out: Google probably does not block any incoming mail based on content. My partner suspects, and I agree, that Viagra just eclipsed all other sex spam because it's so profitable, and can, um, penetrate such a broader market base. He also says there's still plenty of hardcore porn spam in some places, but I've also observed the shift in mailbox spam patterns you're referring to, and we found this article confirming that there is such a downward trend.

[TheFlame]

Most internet users have realised over the past few years that paying for porn is stoopid when there's so much free stuff out there.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

Here's what I found out: Google probably does not block any incoming mail based on content. My partner suspects, and I agree, that Viagra just eclipsed all other sex spam because it's so profitable, and can, um, penetrate such a broader market base. He also says there's still plenty of hardcore porn spam in some places, but I've also observed the shift in mailbox spam patterns you're referring to, and we found this article confirming that there is such a downward trend.

So it's not just me. That's interesting stuff, thanks. Still seems odd, though -- I'd always assumed that spam was so cheap to send that it always paid low-lifes to send it, on any subject.

[SmartAleq]

I think that paying for pr0n on the internet is pretty much a perfect way to establish that someone is completely clueless. Seriously, either that or having MSN as their home page--ooh, or still using an AOL email account...

[EthelMercaptan]

There's also the factor of the handful of arrests of the "world's top spammers" over the last couple of years.
Robert Alan Soloway
Howard Carmack
Yuki Shiina
Christopher Smith

After a while, it does make a dent that hasn't been fully filled in yet.

[Giles]

I think the porn sites market themselves through the free pron, which turns up when you do searches on things like "nasty lesbian threesomes with bondage" -- so it markets itself, since who isn't looking for free pron? But the spam is for things that you would not be looking for -- or, if you are interested in v1@gra, you wouldn't necessarily know about this very cheap C@n@dian supplier.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

Like I said in the OP, all mine at the moment seems to be about getting a university degree without studying, or a fake rolex. I wonder if there's something particular about this moment in time to be calling these forward.

[Exy]

I think that paying for pr0n on the internet is pretty much a perfect way to establish that someone is completely clueless. Seriously, either that or having MSN as their home page--ooh, or still using an AOL email account...

Why?

[Vox Imperatoris]

I think that paying for pr0n on the internet is pretty much a perfect way to establish that someone is completely clueless. Seriously, either that or having MSN as their home page--ooh, or still using an AOL email account...

Why?

Um, because it is free?

[Wheresgeorge04]

I think that paying for pr0n on the internet is pretty much a perfect way to establish that someone is completely clueless. Seriously, either that or having MSN as their home page--ooh, or still using an AOL email account...

Why?

Um, because it is free?

My "Why" to this is - What's wrong with MSN as my homepage? It used to be my Hotmail, but now, I see a link to hotmail, plus news stories, weather, etc. I'll grant you that Pay-for-porn is a clue to cluelessness...

Joe

[SmartAleq]

My "Why" to this is - What's wrong with MSN as my homepage? It used to be my Hotmail, but now, I see a link to hotmail, plus news stories, weather, etc. I'll grant you that Pay-for-porn is a clue to cluelessness...

Joe

I was thinking in terms of "What IE (the default browser for Windows, which is pretty much the default OS) uses as its default home screen," thereby indicating someone who has no idea that a browser can be customized and/or has no clue how to do it and indeed is just jellyfishing along in about as "default" a state as can possibly be imagined. These are the same people who have gobs of shortcut icons spattered all over their desktops that no longer point anywhere, but they're scared shitless to delete the shortcuts because they think it will delete datafiles and/or uninstall programs if they do.

Of course, since I don't actually USE IE for anything, I could be fulla shit as to what it uses as the default home page--which would make me clueless by definition, but at least not THAT kinda clueless... :mrgreen:

[Rigamarole]

Most internet users have realised over the past few years that paying for porn is stoopid when there's so much free stuff out there.

I think that paying for pr0n on the internet is pretty much a perfect way to establish that someone is completely clueless. Seriously, either that or having MSN as their home page--ooh, or still using an AOL email account...

I dunno. I go for free stuff myself since I'm broke, but if you have a particular fetish there are a lot of pay sites with high-quality content that cater specifically to you. Sometimes it can take quite a bit of digging if you are looking for something, erm, particular. If it's just plain old vanilla you're interested in then yeah, I'd agree.