Advertisements for sex enhancement pills and creams that could enlarge various parts of our body come into our inboxes with surprising frequency. The family of one staffer even set up an intervention after they mistakenly left their email signed in on the family computer. Why do we have to deal with the daily annoyance of spam email? Alexis Madrigal reports:

• Spammers have revenues of up to $360 million.
• As long as 1 in 25,000 people respond to spam email, it is personally profitable for the spammer.
• Yet it costs society $18 billion every year to deal with all the spam email. This means that it costs society $50 for every $1 that a spammer makes.
• In contrast, stealing cars “only” costs society $30 for every $1 that the thief makes.

Read the full report that includes suggested techniques to reduce the amount of spam over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Via: Freakonomics