If you want to know how spam really works — and how closely it’s tied to legitimate big business — read an excellent piece by Bob Sullivan at MSNBC. He describes pursuing a spam “from Alabama to Argentina, from a tiny Birmingham-based firm and someone named ?Erp? past a notorious spammer named Super-Zonda ? and right through big-name companies like Ameriquest, Quicken, and LoanWeb”.His conclusion: “While the dirty work is done by secretive, faceless computer jockeys who are constantly evading authorities, lots of companies with names you know profit, at least tangentially, from their efforts.”