NYT article about IronPort, which is playing both sides of the spam game.
This reminds me of what an exec at a major DRM firm said to me not so long ago: it doesn't matter if consumers hate it, or if the media industry loves it . The only thing that really matters is that DRM never really works - so money keeps being poured into it. That holds true for IronPort and spam as well - at least in the short term, because this kind of exploitative strategy leaves you open to massive disruption.