Hi: Just settling in to morning coffee. To answer the question, I do a lot of google searches. When you search "free emoticons" I think there must be a few billion of these things out there.
After wasting more time than I really should have, I ended up on a blogger's page in the spanish language.
Here is the google translation of that blogger's page, which had a spam emoticon. (gotta love google, even translates for us)
In a move to strengthen my personal brand digitall I've created this blog, which deals with Online Marketing and Social Media, where I pour all my knowledge and experience 
(Click on the image to learn more).
Read more:
Thanks for sharing
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
Follow us: @ ignaciosantiago on Twitter | Ignaciosantiagop on Facebook.
I don't know who gets paid for creating emoticons. Due to their ubiquitous nature in cyber-space, I think there must be a lot of people who do it for fun because they can. Anyway, that is how one particular spam emoticon found its way to a forum on spam.
Time for the second cup and then back to shoveling snow.
Cheers
Jack