More Spam For The Holidays

from the yum dept

Isn't it great to know that spammers are gearing up for the holiday shopping season as well? According to a study in Australia, spam is up 650% this holiday season. I know I've certainly been getting a lot more - but 650% is quite a bit. The fine print makes the study a bit questionable. First off, the study might be a bit biased - since the company that did the study makes a spam blocker product. Plus, it appears they're counting virus traffic and things like holiday games and screensavers that are being emailed around. Update: Here's another article saying it's just about the time to start receiving more spam for the holidays. Lucky us.
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  1. identicon
    Mary, 10 Dec 2001 @ 5:47am

    What is spam?

    I personally consider viruses and holiday games to be unsolicited mail, myself. If I didn't have a pretty effective spam filter in place, I would be receiving hundreds of junk messages a day. My spam falls roughly into the following categories (how about everyone else?):
    -Questionable business/make money schemes
    -Buy my product or go to my site (includes many porn-related messages and holiday game advertisements)
    -Viruses, hoaxes and urban legends
    -Resumes

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Tech "n Artist, 10 Dec 2001 @ 10:18am

    A really effective spam filter

    A really effective spam filter would be one on the backbone that filters out mail from .cn .kr. and other third world country domains where spam is either sent from or routed through. Of course that would trash legitmate email from those places, but I am really getting fed up with these spam clowns. Maybe the honest government in the spam havens would do something about their native ISPs doing business with spammers if the country's internet access was cut off from the world.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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