What Is Spam? A Splog? Phishing?

In the Internet world, the term spam refers to emails sent unsolicited, typically in bulk voume, for the purpose of either trying to sell something (often subscriptions to adult content sites) or to spread computer viruses. Spam accounts for a tremendous portion of all the world’s email, causes financial loss due to time wasted in reading/ removing spam, and often causes computer or network failures due to computer viruses passed on in programs attached to spam mail.

The enormous leap in spam content caused the CAN-SPAM Act to be passed in 2003, at least for North America. The terms spam and spamming are now used in general to describe a variety of content or activity that is unwanted or otherwise questionable. Spam has even entered the realm of mobile phones, especially in the realm of text messaging. But with the growth of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and available technology, spamming voicemail is a distinct possibility in the near future.

With the increased interest in weblogs (blogs) and blogging, spam has taken another form on the Internet: splogs. A splog takes snippets of content from dozen of other websites, using software called sitescrapers, and produces a weblog quickly and with a large volume of content, primarily for the purpose of bringing traffic that will hopefully click on contextual advertising (paid for by the click). The main problem with splogs is that they have no original content.

It’s evident that not all sploggers realize that what they are doing is wrong. They’ve been lured by one-page websites telling visitors how their software will create a website for them in no time, and how that will generate tons of revenue for them. What they always fail to mention is how splogging treads very close to content theft and copyright violation.

On the other hand, there are those spammers who know exactly what they’re doing while phishing. Phishing is the act of email spamming in bulk, with a difference. Phishers copy the web pages of legitimate banking and financial institutions, change the links to their own sites, and then send an email that purports to be warning you that you are in violation of your account terms, or some such nonsense. To save yourself, of course, you must click on the included link, visit the page, and fill out your private information again. Which undoubtedly expects you reveal your user name and password.

While most Internet users are savvy enough to not fall for such nonsense - since no responsible financial institution would ever send you such an email - there are those misfortunate few that don’t know any better. These are people usually new to using the Internet - often seniors. But the whole concept behind phishing is to cast the net wide and hope for a few fish/ phish that do get trapped.

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