Microsoft now employs 100 people with a budget of $10 million dollars (Ok, if you do the math, the average salary is a bit low if they also have benefits or any equipment) to track down people attacking Microsoft's Hotmail service, online fruad, identity theft and spyware. The Direct Marketing Association pays 15 detectives $500,000 (even a lower salary) to work with FBI agents (which are paid government salaries). http://www.iht.com/articles/522553.html "Initially you start to work backwards from the e-mail and find that to be a very frustrating route," said Daniel Larkin, chief of the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, the unit that is coordinating Project Slam Spam. "that doesn't lead to a live body. We have collectively realized you have to go the other way and follow the money trail."