Wired News: "Paying Spammers Not to Spam"

Amit Asaravala writes about Global Removal—the company referenced in several posts here recently concerning email economics—in today's Wired News:

"Despite the urban legend, these guys don't really want to keep these names on their lists if they know that the people aren't going to be receptive to advertising," said [Global Removal's CEO Tom] Jackson. "They can make more money for less effort through our program."

"There are a lot of other methods out there for stopping spam, but they're vulnerable to new spam tricks and have serious problems with blocking legitimate messages," added Jackson. "We expect to make a material difference in the amount of spam that people get by going to the source and appealing to what the businesses understand."

(My observations as quoted at the end of the article probably betray my impatience for that delayed fifth season...)