Jonathan Zittrain and Laura Frieder studied stock spammers and found — God help us — that they make money at it.
People who respond to the “pump and dump” scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days.
Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell.
As long as there are poor schlubs who listen to stock tips from the digital equivalents of gangsters, we are doomed to spam forever.
