Yesterday we featured an article on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) contest challenging anyone from the public to come up with a way to beat spam phone calls. The reason for expanding their efforts, says the FTC, is because complaints about spam phone calls, or, “robocalls,” more than doubled in April of 2012, from their last high in October 2010 . So what should we do to avoid these nuisance calls until our unknown hero steps forward with the answer?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responding to what they say is a huge surge in automated phone calls, or, “robocalls,” by offering a cash reward and prizes to the person, or group of people, who can thwart these calls in the “FTC Robocall Challenge.” According to the FTC, complaints about robocalls skyrocketed to a high of 212,000 this past April, compared to the last high of 65,000 complaints in October of 2010.
Death by CAPTCHA is a company that has figured out a way to bypass security CAPTCHAs by offering their technology to solve CAPTCHA phrases. While this may sound like celebratory news for those who are tired of face-palming every time they try to read the twisted words provided by websites looking to make things secure for their users, in reality, it is a gateway to spam.
Anti-spam service Postini is closing, being shuttered by Google (which acquired Positini in 2007), and Google is transferring all Positini customers to Google Apps. So, what do you, as a Postini customer, have to do about this? According to Google, not much.
Don’t you just hate it when you have your pop up blocker enabled, such as the free pop up stopper that comes with FireFox, and somehow, you still find that some companies and websites have managed to get around your pop up blockers, and shove their advertising down your throat (or up your browser, as it were)? As quickly as we figure out how to stop pop ups, it seems, the companies find ways around it, for example using stealth new browser windows, also sometimes known as “pop unders”. Two such companies from which we’re seeing this a lot lately are Casale Media (CasaleMedia.com) and Yield Manager (YieldManager.com)
To help avoid email spam, it’s important to not post your email addresses openly on the Internet – for example, in comments on blogs, in user forums, and on social networking sites. You may think that this is obvious, but plenty of people still do it, and then wonder why they get so much Internet spam – for example spam from web-site contact form links. Good spam protection begins at home – to help avoid junk email spam reduce your own email address footprint and make your email addresses spam resistant. You can do this by posting your email address in a way that allows humans to know how to contact you, but which cannot be recognized as an email address by spamming programs. Here’s how.
If you are looking for a good free anti spam spamfighter – a free spam blocker or free spam filter – to help you deal with spam email, here are a couple of free spam filters and free spam blockers – including free anti spam software – that you may not have heard about! Now you can deal with your spam mail with your choice of a free Internet spam filter or free anti spam software! There is even free anti spam software for World of Warcraft users (SpamMeNot and one version of SpamSentry).
Did you know that you can use Gmail as a spam filter? Among Gmail’s many wonderful features, one of the most useful is the incredible spam filtering. I’ve not come across any spam filtering solution that’s as efficient as Gmail’s and there are a number of ways you can take advantage of this free service without having to change your current email address!
Consumer Reports has released their recommendations for the best anti spam software, the best anti spyware remover, and the best anti virus software.
The “this is spam” button is not an unsubscribe button! The “this is spam” button is a “whack this sender because they sent me this email without permission” button.
If you have ever received mortgage spam, you’ve probably been spammed by Ryan Pitylak. Now following lawsuits against him by Microsoft and the Texas AG, Pitylak says he’s going straight and doing anti-spam consulting.
A new Black Frog anti-spam model, based more than loosely on the defunct Blue Frog service, is being set up over at Okopipi. Will this one succeed? And will it be more ethical? We think that the answer to both is “no”.
The Cobb County school system is spending $250,000 more than necessary on a new telephone system thanks to their spam filter having eaten email from the lowest bidder, Mike Russel of Elite Telecom Services.