Top Click Media Staff Blog » Spam

Spam Emails killing the Planet

Matt Thomas — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:00:51 +0000

Email spam is one of the most annoying phenomena of the modern world. They waste everyone’s time, clog up email accounts needlessly and part the vulnerable and stupid from their money with alarming efficiency. Today, another reason to hate spam and spamming has emerged, as if we needed one, the fact that it’s killing the environment.

According to a report from antivirus software provider McAfee, in cooperation with consultancy ICF International, the huge amounts of useless sales and scam emails sent every year are having a pronounced impact on the environment. According to McAfee, the sending of one spam email translates to 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the wasted energy. This isn’t that much, though the huge volumes of emails we’re talking about mean that the effect starts to become significant very quickly.

The report estimates that the approximately 62 trillion spam emails sent every year use up 33 billion kilowatt hours of power.

Obviously those figures are huge and very troubling. However, McAfee have not released the figures for the harm to the environment caused by the legitimate email and computer use, probably because their agenda is to pour shame on spam mailers. Unfortunately, without those it’s difficult to put the figures in context.

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Court finds in favour of Verizon in Cybersquatting case

Jay Smith — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:00:32 +0000

Last week a court of law decided that San Francisco firm, Online NIC had deliberately registered domains in order to lure Verizon customers to their sites, a technique known as cyber squatting. Verizon were awarded $33.15 million dollars, the largest amount ever awarded in a case of this type.

Online NIC registered 663 domain names which were either exactly the same as, or very similar to Verizon trademarks, these included verizononline.com, myverizonwireless.com and even down to unlikely stuff like 123verizonphones.com. Unsurprisingly, the court decided that these were not legitimately purchased domains and, in fact, were purchased in bad faith with the express desire of misleading the public.

The judgement worked out to $50’000 dollars per domain name. It is hoped that it will deter people from cybersquatting in the future. That is certainly the view of Verizon vice president, Sarah Deutsch who said about the judgement, “This case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers.”

However, Verizon’s chances of actually getting the money may be limited, especially considering the fact that no representatives from Online NIC were present in court to defend themselves, not even a lawyer.

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Concerns over the SearchWiki Comment Function

Matt Thomas — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:00:06 +0000

We’ve been talking a lot about SearchWiki this week. However, one important side of it that we haven’t discussed yet is the comments function, which presents some awkward challenges for site owners. Now that any user can comment on any site on Google you’re going to have to regularly check you aren’t being flamed by competitors, angry customers or general malcontents. There’s also the ever present spectre of comment spam to worry about.

Luckily, these comments aren’t visible to the general public, only those logged into SearchWiki who choose to click the ‘see all notes…’ tab. However, as SearchWiki becomes more ubiquitous and people get used to looking at comments on it this may become a problem. Also, it’s simply not that nice to see, unfair, abusive or plainly untrue comments about your site from some random ‘Internet tough guy’.

Of course people can leave good comments, though anyone who knows a bit about the internet will know that comments boards tend to bring out the worst in people, just have a look at the YouTube board.

If you find yourself slandered on the comments area of your own site listing, you can flag the comment as inappropriate though by then the damage may have already been done.

I’ve got to say i think this is a bit unfair of Google. When you put a comments board on your own site, that’s your choice and you accept the consequences. What SearchWiki is doing is foisting the burden of hearing negative comments about their company, organisation etc., onto site owners.

There are likely to be many who arent to happy about that. I think Google may experience a bit of a backlash from this one.

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