Winning the War on Spam

First published: 24^th September 2018

Have spammers run out of dodgy promotions to peddle and malware to distribute? A recently-received email shows a spammer with a radical new tactic: asking the recipient for money to stop spamming.

Apparently, the spammer is "sick of sending spam" (why? isn't it a highly-automated process) and is willing to remove the recipient's address from their list for a mere USD10. The spammer offers no evidence that they have been responsible for sending a lot, or even any, spam to the recipient before. The spammer does not offer any relief from other spammers still using the recipient's address. There is no reason to suppose they will keep their word.

I propose quietly ignoring the message, and seeing if they get sick enough to stop spamming anyway.