No. It is a real problem, if only because there’s still plenty of sleazy people figuring out new ways to ruin your day.
There’s some skepticism out there about this new spam threat: SPIM, in case you didn’t know, is spam that’s delivered, not to your inbox, but to your instant messaging chat program, like ICQ. Some folk say it’s a problem. Yankee Group, according to a recent report, estimates that currently five to eight percent of all instant messages are spam generated by automated bots. Others are more skeptical. Greg Cher on thespamweblog points out that he’s “been on all three of the major IM’s for at least years and have never…ever had a problem with ‘spim’.”
I was skeptical too, until I today saw these programs being peddled via PRWeb: ”ICQPromoter is a powerful tool for sending messages to thousands of Online or Offline ICQ users. Audience can be targeted by specific interests, country, city, occupation, age, gender or language.” The company behind this, Nanosoft Inc. of Milpitas, California, also offer:
- Admessenger (“a feature-rich direct advertising program designed to deliver your messages directly to upto 2 Billion Windows 2000, XP, and NT desktops…It is like showing Banner Advertisement with paying a single penny”)
- Yahoo Answering Machine (“Serves as Perfect Advertising Machine and Advertisement Machine. You can send Message in Room after Predefined time. Send PM to all users in Current Chat Room.”)
You get the idea. These programs will basically spam large numbers of people using chat messengers, or Yahoo chat rooms, all of them automated. What would be amusing if it weren’t so dumb is the fact that Nanosoft prominently display their “zero-tolerance policy” towards Spam. “If you have found this website due to spam, please let us know,” they say. Presumably that doesn’t include using the products they sell?
On closer inspection, Nanosoft have some other rather sleazy products on display. How about this for size: Shadow Pooper [sic], which will, unknown to the user, “periodically open new browser (in fullscreen mode) and load your ad page.” And just in case that’s not intrusive enough for you, “it also can change users Homepage in browser to any URL you choose.” Helpfully, the blurb says “All you need, is to force user install your application on his PC. Use your imagination. Advertise your application as free xxx-dialer, internet booster, etc… You can even include it in installation pack with other free software.” So now we know how spyware works.
Then there’s the problem that Google have come across: The way that advertising via pay-per-click can be abused. Nanosoft offer this: the Traffic Blaster/ URL Generator which will “allow you to generate a massive amount of traffic to any website you wish. Affiliate sites, Banner Sites, Exit Exchanges, and the list goes on and on.” To be honest, I’m not clear from the blurb exactly how this works. Definitely worth a closer look though.
Ironically, these are the same guys selling Popup blockers, chat encrypters, privacy protecters and evidence eliminators. Which brings me back to an earlier post on the question: How can you buy software to protect your privacy from folk you don’t trust? (And I couldn’t help noticing that Nanosoft don’t really trust their customers. This message appears on their website: “Because of the growing incidences of Internet fraud, we log everything and take it very seriously. All the fraudulent transactions will be reported to FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC).” Right.)