Product category:
Web design and development
News Release from: Cloudmark | Subject: social networking spam
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 10 June 2008
Spam prevalent on social networking
sites
Research from Cloudmark has revealed that, in the past year, more than four in five social networking site users received unwanted "friend" invitations, messages or postings on their account.
Cloudmark, the global leader in carrier-grade messaging security, has announced the results of a poll conducted on its behalf by Harris Interactive, which revealed that, in the past 12 months, more than four in five social networking site users (83 per cent) received unwanted (or spam) "friend" invitations, messages or postings on their social or professional network account Similar to attacks found in email, social networking spam generally targets users with unsolicited product messages or attempts to redirect them to a phishing site or one hosting malware
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 7 May 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Cloudmark prevents Web 2.0 messaging abuse
Cloudmark Authority for Social Networking Providers is the only commercially deployed solution to effectively combat all categories of social networking abuse.
Mailtrust uses Cloudmark for spam protection
Cloudmark, a leader in carrier-grade messaging security, is to provide complete spam and phishing protection to Mailtrust's more than 100,000 business hosting customers.
The problem is severe enough that two-thirds (66 per cent) of users say they would be at least somewhat likely to switch to another social network if they were to receive a significant number of these unwanted messages.
Users are concerned with the rise of spam on their social networks and have experienced an increase over the past six months.
The majority (80 per cent) of social network users are at least somewhat concerned about spam, phishing and virus attacks on their social or professional network account.
Further reading
Do you need an email newsletter?
Nick Pauley, managing director of Shortburst, explains why e-newsletters are beneficial for business.
How to write your first email newsletter
Nick Pauley, managing director of Shortburst, gives guidance on writing an e-newsletter.
Why pay for search CPC when you could pay CPA?
Kevin Cornils, chief executive of affiliate marketing specialists buy.at, looks at the growth of cost-per-action payment models over cost-per-click for search services.
Many users (37 per cent) have noticed an increase in the number of unwanted messages they have received in the last six months and nearly one in five (17 per cent) say this increase has been significant.
On average, users have reported receiving 64 unwanted, or spam, "friend" invitations, messages or postings in the last 12 months.
Social networks are very popular as nearly half of the online adult population (48 per cent) has at least one social or professional networking website account.
Social networks have grown enormously in the last two years alone.
According to Forrester Research, Facebook has more than 60 million active users with membership doubling every six months and MySpace as more than 110 million monthly active users worldwide.
To broaden their membership, many social networks use a viral approach to recruit new members and provide multiple ways for members to interact with one another, including email, mobile text messages, chats, blog/profile postings and message broadcasting.
Unfortunately, the very qualities that make social networks successful - the wide variety of communication channels, the openness of the networks and the size of the audience - are also powerful lures for spammers and hackers.
"The results of this survey should be of concern to both social network operators and users," said Neil Cook, VP, Technology Services EMEA, at Cloudmark.
"Social networking sites need to be concerned about the proliferation of spam and phishing attacks and the impact it could have on their ability to grow and retain members.
"Social networking providers must address the security issue head-on or risk declining usage and revenues.
"Meanwhile, consumers need to take the same precautions they have adopted in other forms of online communications, including never responding to unwanted messages and never posting personal information on their profiles that could lead to identity theft.".
• Cloudmark: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Marketingservicestalk email newsletter
• Marketingservicestalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
