SON SON
I came across a disturbing story on Yahoo! News last week called “Confessions of a former spammer”. It detailed the practices of a former email spammer named “Ed” who earned a as much as $15,000 per week sending emails that promoted pills, porn and casinos. Like any good opportunist, Ed has written a book about his exploits.
But just a read of the news story will give you a feel for what it’s like to work in this seedy sector of the internet. Read the full story
Once my nausea subsided, reading the article got me to thinking about our own spam challenges. While we have powerful anti-spam protections in place on the Yahoo! network and in Messenger specifically, the ultimate spam protection comes from our millions of users who take the time to report unwanted messages.
It’s vital that when you encounter spam on Yahoo! Messenger, you take the time to click to report it. By doing so, you alert us to spammy Yahoo! IDs which in turn makes our anti-spam system – SpamGuard – more intelligent. The end result: less spam for you and other users. Sort of an all-for-one and one-for-all mentality.
Reporting spam in Yahoo! Messenger is easy. If you receive an unwanted IM, click the “Ignore” button near the top of the IM window (or at the bottom of the offline messages windows). This will add the sender’s ID to your Ignore list to block future messages. You will also be asked if you want to report it as spam. If you accidentally ignore a real friend from your list, you can always remove them from it by going to the Messenger menu, choosing “Preferences”, and then “Ignore List”.