This approach is less effective than spam filtering. Why? Simply because taking down a web site just creates a shell game where new web sites by spammers go up as quickly as the old ones go down. Folks spend a lot of time and energy to "take down" a single web site; but a new one can be built in a manner of minutes. From a resource perspective, the spammers easily "win."
RE: Spam fighters hit criminals' weak spot
Until ICANN gets rid of the scourge called domain tasting, it is trivial for spammers to create throwaway domains for a few days, host ad links, malware, or sell junk with very little to no cost.
It's about compressing time
I like this idea a lot and have blogged about it before.
This initiative is not just about eliminating the domains that spammers use.
It's about compressing the time interval that a spam bot network has between starting their campaign with an email blast and ending it by taking the url out of service. If their actions cut the useful life of a spam campaign, it affects spammers in two ways:
a. makes ISPs more capable of adopting policies that make it hard for spammer sites, perhaps slowing the frequency of spam campaigns;
b. cuts revenue from the spam campaign since lots of clicks will not be satisfied with a working website.
This technique is one of several that work to increase the cost of being a spammer by reducing the productivity of their processes.
RE Tim Bass' comment: Spam Filtering doesn't perform well in research on the email experience that my company has done involving over 500 email users.
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