Spam pays
A Direct Marketing Association study shows that email spam does pay for the advertisers and the consumers according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
The study found that "commercial e-mail advertisements" generate more than $7.1 billion in sales each year and $1.5 billion in potential savings to American consumers. A DMA spokesman says the study was intended to measure "legitimate" online purchases of items such as books, hotel accommodations and travel through e-mail promotion.
The good news: "This study shows convincingly that the e-mail marketplace is huge, both in the number of purchasers and the dollars spent," the study says. The bad news: ditto.