# Does my ISP really filter out 100,000,000 spam emails per week?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-my-isp-really-filter-out-100-000-000-spam-emails-per-week/702993>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 30, 2014, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-my-isp-really-filter-out-100-000-000-spam-emails-per-week/702993 "2014-10-30T11:09:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-my-isp-really-filter-out-100-000-000-spam-emails-per-week/702993/21 "2014-10-31T10:54:27Z")

</div>

> [@tellyworth](#):
>
> This only works if you set a price that is higher that spammers can afford, and also low enough so as not to discourage wanted emails.
> 
> Unfortunately, there’s good evidence that the price spammers are willing to pay is _higher_ than what a typical user would pay. Easily several cents per email received, perhaps more than a dollar. That’s more than a good portion of the world’s population could afford.

What evidence? This isn’t a rhetorical dismissal, but genuine curiosity.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-my-isp-really-filter-out-100-000-000-spam-emails-per-week/702993/22 "2014-10-31T11:58:08Z")

</div>

> [@Napier](#):
>
> What evidence? This isn’t a rhetorical dismissal, but genuine curiosity.

The prices paid on marketplaces for sketchy lead generation, backlink, SEM, MLM, PPC and scam delivery services (human and semi-automated spam). The prices spammers pay for ancillary services they need, like hosting and Captcha breaking. And cost per click rates for Google ads give some indication I think.

When insurance companies are paying Google $40+ per click, it’s not hard to imagine they’d spend $0.01, $0.10 or even $1.00 to deliver an unsolicited email to a potential customer.

Also, in situations where there is already a delivery cost (such as a form that requires a Captcha or phone number), spammers often use MLM-style scams to dupe other people into paying that cost for them. That’s what a lot of those “my sister makes $x an hour” scams are about.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-my-isp-really-filter-out-100-000-000-spam-emails-per-week/702993.md?page=1)