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INDUSTRY NEWS
Chat rooms are a primary source for spammers
Nov 14 2002: A recent investigation undertaken by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has found that chat rooms, newsgroups and Web pages, are the key sources of email addresses for spammers.
In an effort to determine what online activities place consumers at risk for receiving unsolicited mail, the FTC created 175 email addresses which were then posted at 250 different locations.
The locations chosen included chat rooms, newsgroups, Web pages, free personal Web-page services, message boards and email service directories.
One hundred percent of the email addresses posted in chat rooms received spam, with the first unsolicited message being received just eight minutes after the address was first posted.
Around 86 percent of the email addresses posted at newsgroups and Web pages received spam; as did 50 percent of addresses at free personal Web page services.
Nearly 30 percent of the addresses posted on message boards received unsolicited emails, as did nine percent of those posted in email service directories.
According to the FTC study, the type of spam received was not related to the sites where the email addresses were received.
For example, email addresses posted to children's newsgroups received a large amount of adult content and work-at-home spam.
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For a link to this article please visit www.nua.ie
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