Why are people reluctant to report spam to the abuse departments of well-known e-mail and hosting service providers? Many people don’t know that such departments exist and other are fed up with the ignorant approach of these departments towards reports from the public. What’s the use of an abuse department if it doesn’t do anything about the problems and abuse reported to it? But it is not only members of the public who experience these frustrations, anti-cyber-crime organisations have the same problem. These abuse departments eventually decide whether it is necessary to suspend the services of the guilty party or not, no matter how much evidence you provide to support your claim.
It revolves all around money, even the free services generate revenue for these companies. Free web site hosting normally involves adds of the hosting company displayed on the web site. Web sites involved in spamming activities bring in a lot of visitors which means the ads of the hosting company also gets exposure. Why would they want to terminate a web site that brings them a lot of revenue? This means that they are not enforcing their own terms of service, or you can even say their terms of service are only applicable to those who abuse the services without generating any revenue for the company. The problem becomes even worse when the abusing party pays for the services. Why would they want to cancel the account of a loyal client, it means revenue loss for them? What these companies don’t understand is that they are making themselves less popular by being so reluctant to take action against these abusers and they will eventually only attract the criminals, effectively making them accomplices to these criminal activities. I believe most world-class companies will stare bankruptcy in the face if they terminate the accounts of all the spammers and unethical companies making use, or I should rather say, abusing their services.
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