Spam Cost Resources [ trustworthy ]

Tue Feb 11 17:10:58 UTC 2003

Do these figures take into account the number of calls you will get from
sales when they realize you lost the profit equivalent of 2 to 3 large
business customers?

Or the legal fees incurred by shutting the customer off? Most spammers work
terms into their contracts whereas if it is not fulfilled to their
satisfaction or if you threaten them, you have the option of buying back the
contract from them (it's not as simple as just killing their circuit and
telling them to go away).

There is a lot more to it than just NOC man hours, which could be very
detrimental to your company.

---
Michael Damm, MIS Department, Irwin Research & Development
V: 509.457.5080 x298 F: 509.577.0301 E: miked at irwinresearch.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Alif The Terrible [mailto:measl at mfn.org] 
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 7:44 PM
To: Martin Hannigan
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Spam Cost Resources [ trustworthy ]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, Martin Hannigan wrote:

> 
> Does anyone have a resource that they believe in when it
> refers to how much spam really costs Network operatos?
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/magazine/09SPAM.html
> 
> I'm trying to do some validation. Thanks.
> 
> -M

Hi Martin,

	I just did these numbers a little over two months ago, as
justification for another head count (cheaper to have more heads as we shut
down fewer people).  Each complaint costs us about $3.50, and each "case"
(more than 5 complaints get a case) costs us around $8.00.  The costs
associated with actually working a case varied wildly, depending on whether
we shut the customer down (worst case), have to repetitively threaten to
shut
them down, etc...  The "Average" case cost us $35.00 to work, but, as I said
above, this takes a LOT of things into account.

Please feel free to use these numbers, but strip identifying data, as the
name associated with them (obviously) did not, and will not, consent to this
stuff leaving the company.

//Alif