Archive for the ‘Spammers’ Category

Google Maps and User-Created Content Spam?

February 27, 2008

Nature abhors a vacuum and apparently so does the relatively new user-created content section of Google Maps.

Today while drilling down into Google Maps to inspect local Google Adwords placements, I discovered the user-created content section of Google Maps has been overrun if not monopolized by spammers.

The spam isn’t exactly visible from the surface, however I am not so sure these are the types of results Google wants its Google Maps users to find.

Aren’t all forms of platform level user-created content ultimately a vacuum waiting to be filled with spam?

Are the following results spam or are they “content”?

1. Google Maps User Created Content: User created content

Google Maps User created content Image 1

2. Google Maps User Created Content: User-created content Results 1-10

Google Maps User created content Image 2

3. Google Maps User Created Content: D. “Work from home, easy…

“Work from home, easy… Oklahoma City OK …the email ‘Payment for Internet Marketing’. THIS KEEPS THE PROGRAM …that says ‘Payment for Internet Marketing 5th’. Once you have . …1 of 50 placemarks in Yakaz – oklahoma.yakaz.co”

Google Maps User created content Image 3

4. Google Maps User Created Content: “Displaying content from oklahoma.yakaz.com”

“The content overlaid onto this map is provided by a third party, and Google is not responsible for it.”

Google Maps User created content Image 4

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Posted in Google Maps, Spam, Spammers, User Created Content | Leave a Comment »

Pump and Dump Stock Promotion Schemes

September 13, 2006

Pink sheet stock promoters have found a new more efficient way for reaching the gullible and greedy – zombie spam.

According to an assistant professor of finance at Purdue Laura L. Frieder and Jonathan L. Zittrain professor of internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, “relationships between spammers and virus authors have caused millions of virus-infected personal computers to be harnessed as ‘zombies’ to send spam further lowering its cost.”

I met professor Zittrain while sailing the Queen Mary 2 from Southhampton to New York in the summer of 2005. I attended his University of Oxford continuing education series along with others including actor Richard Dreyfus. He showed me how to make a free voip phone call from the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean using Skype.

The professors have published a study: Spam Works: Evidence From Stock Touts and Corresponding Market Activity

Next time you receive a hot stock tip in your inbox, thank Bill Gates.


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Posted in Bill Gates, Email Spam, Hot Stock Tip, Inbox, Influence, Influenza, IP Phone, Laura Frieder, Pink Sheet, Pump and Dump, Queen Mary 2, Skype, Spammers, Stock Promoter, Stock Promotion, Stock Schemes, University of Oxford, VOIP Phone, Zombie Spam | Leave a Comment »