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It's Not Just You, iCloud Calendar Spam is On the Rise (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the icloud-spams dept.

New submitter petersike writes: If you're using iCloud to sync your calendar across your devices, chances are you just received a bunch of spammy invites over the last few days. Many users are reporting fake events about Black Friday 'deals' coming from Chinese users. If you're looking for cheap Ray-Ban or Louis Vuitton knockoffs, you might find these invites useful. Otherwise, you might be wondering: why is this a thing? If you use your calendar for work, you already rely on calendar invites to invite other people to meetings and events. All major calendar backends support this feature -- Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange and Apple's iCloud. And it's quite a convenient feature as you only need to enter an email address to send these invitations. You don't need to be in the same company or even in your recipient's address book. But it's also yet another inbox -- and like every inbox out there, it can get abused.

5 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Turn it off! Turn it all off! by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Feeling cranky today but I really wish ALL of this nonsense with calendar invites would stop. People are forever 'inviting' me to meetings that I don't have to go to. Typically when I'm supposed to be doing something else. It seems that whoever designed at least iCal made no allowance for the fact that I'm not available to everyone all of the time. I have work to do. Have you meetings but leave me out of your twisted plans.

    Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  2. Re:No invites, no job... by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the hell kind of job notifies people for an interview using an Apple service? If you can't be bothered to speak with me then I can't be bothered with your silly text messages.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  3. Just FYI, here is how you stop it.... by CaptnCrud · · Score: 5, Informative

    Log in to icloud through the web browser.
    Go to the Calendar app
    Once in, click the settings cog on left bottom corner
    Click on preferences
    In advanced at the very bottom select the email invites radio instead of the invites go to app radio

    Done.

    1. Re:Just FYI, here is how you stop it.... by xanthines-R-yummy · · Score: 2

      Came here to say the same thing. Found it on Lifehacker/Gizmodo. See link for pretty pictures!

      http://gizmodo.com/how-to-stop...

  4. Re:Fix by another_twilight · · Score: 2

    The problem with this is that you will no longer get legitimate invitations in your calendar. Don't get me wrong, the only other ways are even worse.

    Here's the only three solutions I can find.