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AOL Files First Spim Lawsuit
Iphtashu Fitz writes "CNet News is reporting that 4 major internet providers - AOL, Earthlink, Microsoft, and Yahoo, have filed another bunch of lawsuits against spammers. What makes this round interesting is that AOL has filed the first ever lawsuit against against spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim. So far spim has only affected relatively small numbers of users but the problem is growing, which is why AOL is targeting it now."
When *@aol.com first started appearing on newsgroups I thought AOL would just be a minor nuisance, like a hangnail. Then I got *@aol.com in my email box like there was no tomorrow, and nuisance turned into genuine pain in the neck, like a cancer.
... and I can't help but think that they've affected the genre tenor of the Internet as a whole in the process.
But slowly and surely, AOL has done much to both transform themselves and the user populace into better Internet citizens
So now that they're taking a pre-emptive strike against spim, I have to applaud.
the real problem lies in the fact that spammers have an incentive to send spam. if nobody would buy penis enlargement pills, accept online mortgages, and order medicine online, we wouldn't have this problem.
one way to combat this problem is look from the other end, we should educate the public and discourage people from doing any business with online sellers. consumers should be suspicious when such emails appear. i personally think this would help reduce spam
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
why do we have to make up nicknames for everything? can't we just call it instant messenger spam? jeez.
Do they account for the enormous amount of legitimate messages that they filter? :P
AOL will not sue themselves. After all AIM is loaded with their own unwanted advertising and popups.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Because AOL pays for the CDs and their delivery. You, the recipient, do not. That is the difference between all spam and snail junk mail.
,you get the benefit of a CD case you can re-use for yourself. I got two last month, the same day, both addressed to me with slightly different formatting of my address. Awfully nice of them, really. I have several CD cases and a bunch of drink coasters now :-)
Even with "legitimate" UCE where the sender has paid for bandwidth, servers, rackspace, etc. and sends it in the clear, you still bear some of the cost because it's coming in over your connection that you pay for every month and on your equipment that you bought for your purposes, not the spammers' convenience.
When an AOL CD is delivered, you bear no cost except the effort to open it and place it on your table to use as a drink coaster. Plus
one way to combat this problem is look from the other end, we should educate the public and discourage people from doing any business with online sellers.
I wouldn't want to discourage online business - after all, that is proving to be a more and more common business practice. What I would like to teach people is the difference between going to a serious store like e.g. amazon.com, bhphotovideo.com or similar that you know from real life, brand or web ad, compared to spamvertized products.
Getting spam is the online equivalent of a door-to-door salesman, with a virtual suitcase which happens to be a website. You're not going to them, they're coming to you. They waste your time, sell crap, can't be reached for complaints, there's no store, no refund, no nothing. There's never a reason to do business with someone that stuffs your mailbox/im client with ads. That must be the message. If you want something, go out on the net and get it. Those who contact you are the bottom of the barrel. Go on google, sites regarding the topic, consumer reviews, something, anything, search and find someone better.
Actually, this won't cure the problem - stupidity or bad deals. That can't be done. But it would greatly reduce the crap flowing in, if you know better than to go out looking, you won't have to deal with it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You would think AOL would rather it be called it SPAIM.
Nothing like Brand recognition when your talking about Spam.
Oh wait... Hormel's already got that one cornered.
Heil Sig! -Rob
It's always a hand full of people that make things more difficult for the rest of us. AOL incorporated image verification in their account creation process, which cut the amount of spammers down tremendously. Why don't they incorporate it in every initial IM? This way a user has to pass the image verification to send an instant message, but the person on the other end doesn't and both will be able to talk freely, until the IM window is closed. Something a bot obviously can't do.
Oh, great idea! Now you've just made the barrier of entry so much lower. 0 to IM spam in 10 seconds.