Spam's dirtiest secret is that so-called "legitimate" businesses are footing the bills. (That's CipherTrust's Paul Judge, one of the "good guys" in the anti-spam fight, at right. Read more on him here. And if you see him, buy him a beer, or whatever he wants.)

They seldom do this directly. Mostly it's through "affiliate marketing" agreements, often created by re-sellers. The legitimate companies put stuff into their channel. The re-sellers are part of the channel. If the affiliate gets busted for spam it's "Mission Impossible" -- the secretary disavows any knowledge of their actions.

This is why, not that spam has swallowed the legitimate business of e-mail marketing, it's becoming seasonal. You get sex spam in the summer, financial scams in the fall.

This could, if someone were clever, create a way in which to reduce the spam problem.

1. Create penalties for companies that don't police their distribution channels.
2. Hold these companies harmless if they help police nail crime that occurs within their channels.
3. Impose penalties on re-sellers who don't police their channels.

Personally I think a lot of this can be done in civil court. If groups like ISIPP threaten legal action, not against spammers, but against the makers of the legitimate products being sold through spam (like Viagra, Cialis, etc. etc.), they could privately drop the suits in exchange for cooperation against the channels.

Meanwhile they could ramp-up the publicity against manufacturers who refuse to cooperate in policing their channels. If the maker of Cialis settles while the maker of Viagra doesn't, for instance, anti-spam boycotts might be launched against Viagra -- which may have been why Cialis settled in the first place.

Oh, one more point. The fight against spam on behalf of major manufacturers should be sold as a fight by them to protect their trademarks and reputation.