The lifeblood of the spammer is e-mail. They absolutely need to be able to send lots of it on an ongoing basis to stay in "business". High profile spammers might send 80 million pieces of junk e-mail every single day. Yes one single human .

ISPs all over the online world have vowed to stop spammers sending such vast amounts of e-mail through their mail servers. Do they really keep their word? All the end user sees is that the spam keeps coming. There must be a loophole there somewhere. There is.

In the soft white underbelly of the internet there exists something known as a pink contract. The term pink contract comes from the color of the famous tinned meat that junk e-mail gets its title from. A pink contract is simply a business agreement between the ISP and the spammer. The spammer agrees to pay the ISP to turn a blind eye to the junk email passing through their mail servers.

Surely this is bad business for the ISP? Well the answer to that is both Yes and No. Yes its bad news for the everybody who receive the junk e mail and No its nice news for the ISPs bank balance. A monthly pink contract may pay the ISP amounts from $10,000 upwards. Bearing in mind that the average work-at-home spammer averages $100,000 net per year the above figure is small change fo the bigger junk electronic mail vendors (the guys who earn $200,000 - $400,000 per month.)

But