Topic: Trajectories:End-to-End Analysis of the Spam Value Chain (A 16 page PDF).

[Clive]

Through purchasing Viagra, herbal remedies, and replica watches, computer scientists explain how modern spam works. The spam business model consists of three components: advertising, click support (i.e., delivering the customer to an actual website), and realization (i.e., receiving payment and delivering the product to the customer). Different firms located across the globe carry out the various tasks. For example, the website domains are registered in Russia, the credit card payments are handled by banks in Azerbaijan, and the pills are sent from manufacturers in India. The spam business infrastructure appears to be organized around a small number of affiliate programs that coordinate the activities among the different firms.


LINK

[Simon]

Ba*tards, the lot of them!   

[GillE]

Surely that three stage model is the same as any other business model?  Make your product known to the consumer, deal with the consumer, deliver the goods in return for payment.