All of us hate spam, right? Not exactly. A new poll by security firm Marshall has found that a surprising 29% of all web users have purchased something advertised in a spam message. The most commonly purchased items, perhaps not quite as surprising, are sexual enhancement pills, adult toys and software, along with knock offs of brand name fashions and jewelry. A similar poll conducted 4 years ago found that 20% of web users had purchased items from spam, so unfortunately for us, spam appears to be increasingly effective.

Why this is so remains to be seen. You’d think that most people these days are educated enough to know spam is a bad thing and most everything advertised in it is either fake or a scam of some kind. Apparently there are more suckers out there on the web than we realize, and it’s a safe bet to say that most of the same people who line a spammers pocket with cash are probably also part of that same spammers botnet. After all, if someone is foolish enough to buy a male enhancement pill advertised in a spam message, they are probably also foolish enough to click on those links promising cool videos or breaking news stories!

The moral of the story is, as long as there are people out there willing to buy from spammers, the spam problem will continue to grow, as will the related underground economy of cybercrime.