First, a promise: this will not turn into a rant about
spammers and phishers and how they should all be tossed into Turkish prisons.
I’ll muse about all the deliciously evil things that could befall them in said
prisons another day when I’m feeling more morose and vindictive.
No, this entry concerns itself with a basic question: do spam and phishing work? Because if they do (and everybody seems to think that they themselves cannot be fooled by the stuff), then the notion of the internet as enabling a perfect market must be wrong.
My assumption here is that everyone who has an email address actually uses it to communicate with the outside world, and not as some sort of e-echo chamber. So as connected people, e-mail address owners are aware of the fact that the wares of spammers and phishers represent, in the words of economists, negative economic value. Essentially, a perfect market exists with respect to information about the value of spam and phishing emails.
So if everybody’s aware that spammers and phishers are up to no good, why do the practices continue to exist? Put another way, if no one is accepting the call to action presented by these emails, then spammers and phishers would move on to some other socially reprehensible activity, like mugging old ladies. But they haven’t, at least not if I judge by the volume of emails I get everyday promising small-caps that will turn into large-caps, and small pe – well, you get the idea.
Obviously, the constructs of the problem, as I’ve laid them out, are flawed. Perfect information does not exist; enough people are out there being hoodwinked into giving out their banking pin numbers and buying mail-order Cialis that the spammers and phishers are encouraged to continue their activities. But the question gnaws at me: if people can’t be trusted to delete this stuff given all the evidence that it is likely harmful to them (or more precisely, their bank accounts and their privacy), then exactly how do economists conclude that the internet can help enable perfect markets for goods and services? It seems to me that imperfect markets are alive and kicking.
AS
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