The latest addition to your high-tech vocabulary is “spim”. The spam that gets sent to your Instant Messenger (IM) account.
While the torrent of unsolicited spam emails continues to rise, it is being far outpaced by the surge in unwanted messages sent to the users of instant messaging programs, analysts have warned.
America Online, in fact, has filed a federal suit in Virginia accusing numerous unnamed defendants of violating federal and state laws by sending bulk messages to instant message accounts and Internet chat rooms.
“The reason spim has taken off is very simple - the money and the marketers go where people are,” says Robert Mahowald, an analyst at the IT advisory firm IDC in Massachusetts. “IM is just another channel, but now people are starting to use it more often.”
IM software allows users to swap text messages and files in real time from a computer or cell phone, with Microsoft, Yahoo, ICQ or AOL programs being the most popular.
Spim is more insidious than spam because messages pop up automatically when a user is logged in, making them harder to ignore. “It feels more intrusive,” says Jason Catlett of anti-spam company Junkbusters in New Jersey.
However, users of IM programs commonly use a “buddy list” of invited friends to limit who can send messages to them. The buddy lists can be switched off, but their widespread use makes it more difficult for spimmers to message a stranger’s computer. In contrast, most users of email do not use “white lists” to filter incoming email.
Although it is on the rise, analysts do not predict that spim will ever be sent in bulk on the scale of spam. This is mainly because IM messages only travel over one company’s servers, making it much easier to monitor and block suspicious activity. Emails, on the other hand, are routed through multiple service providers before arriving at their destination.
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