Once more into the breach...I do this as a public service, so you don't need to worry about the slimy things caught in your spam filter.
The big story, as always, is penis enlargement spam. It's rampantly ballooned in the last quarter! Drugs are down and fake watches are up. There are more new categories than I have seen in one review before. Overall volume is down. This may reflect some serious recent spam-killing actions, metaphorical and actual.
The current profile looks like this:
- 19% Posh watches practically being given away. This is up from 12% from last quarter.
- 19% Discount pharmaceuticals, including offers of drug trials for viagra and queries about having "heartaches." (Headaches, heartburn or lovelorn? Perhaps all three). Dramatic decline from 56%.
- 11% Penis enhancements and help for your (always female) partner. More than doubled in size! That's more like it!
- 10% Why do you need Adobe software? (Because I'm a pathetic web programmer...) Cheap "genuine" software, with reference to financial crisis as excuse for piracy, presumably. Avast! New category, shipmates! I think MS and Adobe better cut their prices dramatically ;-)
- 9% We ship worldwide: Hot deals/Member services/Status accessories and attributes/eBay/Payment accepted/Safety information. Unimaginative. C'mon guys you can do better than this!
- 4% Appeals to update your firewall, O.S. etc. Also a new category. Also lame.
- 4% Diets endorsed by Oprah...you'd have thought that wouldn't be a recommendation worth having, but I guess she's tried a few. Up from 1% last quarter.
- 3% Your check is (still) waiting (is that Czech or cheque?) and other bogus sales confirmations. Also up from 1% last time.
- 3% Dating sites, with transparently lewd come-ons...eew!
- 2% Activate your Internet TV/Watch movies on your PC. New category.
- 2% Gambling - who put the bling in gambling? Perhaps no-one, it's down from 6% last time.
- 1% This is why you are fat. What little me? I've always been told I was robust! New.
- 1% Appeals to laziness (Why work? Why get out of bed?) Why indeed. New.
- 1% From "Doctor" Berry; "Clearance: Save up to 75%.-Choose Real Taste™" (which is a Pizza Pizza slogan). Clearance pizza as a cheap medication? Yay! New.
- 1% Unspecified financial help to fix what ails ya. Well this isn't the flood of financial crisis help offers that I predicted but it's up.
Someone asked why I bother. It's interesting. It only takes 5 minutes. There are only about 10 categories every time. Seeing the patterns, shows that mostly the originators are few, somewhat stupid, and trying to appeal to the more stupid or at least to non fluent English-speaking people. Specifically those who think that wearing a fake Rolex will make women like them and that someone is going to give them health, money, fame and entertainment while they lie on the couch, eating crap.
Hmm...sounds OK, doesn't it?
