Can Tamiflu Beat Viagra at Spam?

Today I stumbled upon a CNN news article (published in July 2009), which reports that the famous anti-flu drug Tamiflu has recently become a huge target of many spammers to the point that it “out-spam” Viagra.

Spammers have been sending tons of junk emails pushing fake Tamiflu since swine flu was declared a global pandemic last June. The report adds that most sites that used to sell fake Viagra started to offer Tamiflu besides/instead of it, hoping to make a fortune out of this highly on-demand flu treatment, especially with the beginning of flu season (autumn) and the fast worldwide spread of swine flu.

Anyway, I say no way any other product could out-spam Viagra. There might be other products that get occasional spammer focus, but Viagra stays the all-time spammer favorite. Tamiflu spam might have gotten a boost due to the swine flu pandemic, but as soon as the H1N1 vaccine doses become available for the public (this October) and everyone is protected against this deadly virus, Tamiflu demand will decrease and get back to normal and most spammers will lose interest in it. But men will never stop asking for bigger erections and thus Viagra spam will never fade away.

So, why is there so much Viagra spam? And why do most spammers target Viagra?

The reason for that is the “online popularity” of Viagra.

Viagra is very popular on the Internet. That’s because it is considered an “embarrassment drug”, i.e. most patients would feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to ask a doctor for a Viagra prescription. And since most men would be reluctant to discuss their sexual problems with someone else, even their doctor, they try to find a more discreet way to obtain this medication and so they go online to purchase it privately.

On the other hand, almost no one would be embarrassment to ask their doctor or pharmacist for Tamiflu.

Just for comparison, according to Google’s keyword research tool, the search term “buy Viagra” has received about 1,000,000 searches during the month of August alone, while the term “buy Tamiflu” has only received about 14,800 searches during the same period of time. This suggests that Tamiflu’s online sales are not even close to Viagra’s. Even the closest Viagra rival, Cialis, only got about 450,000 searches for the term “buy Cialis” during the month of August.

By far, no other drug has been bigger or better-selling than Viagra on the Internet. Also, the controversy about Viagra has long made this product part of people’s culture. And that’s why most spammers choose to promote Viagra.