Why does Google love spam?

UK Debate · 2008-04-05 3:02 pm

I guess everyone who administers forum sites has been blitzed by spam merchants using the google email domain, gmail. Many that I know have banned registration attempts from all .gmail users.

What I find hard to fathom is why google make it difficult/impossible to report spam abusers and why they do nothing to remove the offenders from their club.

Get a duff result from a search query and you can report that ('...Help us maintain the quality of Google search results....') but catch a gmailer abusing the published TOC's (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/e … icies.html) and what does Google do?

Nothing, nada, zip, nowt that's what.

I suppose it must be a membership = ads = revenue thing. What a pitty the gman puts (vast) profits above spam ethics.

goodman84 · 2008-04-05 6:22 pm

I aggre, Almost all my spam now is from gmail accounts...I'm not sure if they make money off of it however it is currently true that they have done nothing to fix this. I must say, I wonder how a bot gets threw its HARD HARD Visual Code thing, Have you ever clicked listen to the letters? Even a dam human can't make sense of it.

UK Debate · 2008-04-05 7:38 pm

goodman84 wrote:

I wonder how a bot gets threw its HARD HARD Visual Code thing, Have you ever clicked listen to the letters?

I've not heard that myself.

The wordsmiths at google docs write reams of text telling Joe Public just how much they battle spam going into their inboxes (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/fights … ained.html) but say NOTHING (that I can find) about reporting abusive mailers.

The TOCs clearly state that spam mailing is a no-no and yet they do not seem willing to add a 'report this email' link for those breaking their rules.

It's not a technology issue and it's not a performance issue so I can only guess that it's a 'we don't care if you abuse our service providing you don't abuse other gmailers' issue.

Shame on them I say.

johnp · 2008-04-07 7:42 am

The one thing that every Internet user has to have, except those who use Cyber Cafes, is an ISP. With that service comes an email account with the option of additional email accounts for family members.

If every forum stated that only the ISP email account can be used to register and we all banned the MSN, GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo and all the rest of the free ones, we would surely see a dramatic drop in spammers registering in forums.

Just my twopenn'th.

John P

UK Debate · 2008-04-07 9:52 am

johnp wrote:

If every forum stated that only the ISP email account can be used to register and we all banned the MSN, GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo and all the rest of the free ones, we would surely see a dramatic drop in spammers registering in forums.

We'd certainly see a drop in spam activity at the UK Debate if we banned all free email domains but we'd also see a reduction in genuine signups using those free accounts too.

As forum admins we have to make a balanced decision regarding whole domain banning; personally I've elected to allow most freemails.

What grinds me is not necessarily the spammers (although obviously they all deserve to face a long, lonely cyber-death) but the domain owners such as Google who do nothing to prevent people abusing their name.

How difficult can it be for an Internet giant to provide a form to report abuser details and then act on it?

Not difficult at all I'd say - and that leads me to believe that the Gman (and other freebies) are actively promoting spam by their reluctance to accept that the spam fairies are real.

1star1 · 2008-04-07 2:31 pm

i get aload of spam with them,at the moment its all with ive won the lottery etc and will i be the next of kin to deceased ,yea right i just forward it back to them ,with nice try!now something off i wont say cos i will be banned!and scam someone else!i do now forward it over to this website abuse@xcvmail.com they have loads from me,lmao i would be very rich indeed if it wasnt a scam.but what gets me there all from s.africa.

Captain Red · 2008-04-08 3:31 am

UK Debate wrote:

johnp wrote:
If every forum stated that only the ISP email account can be used to register and we all banned the MSN, GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo and all the rest of the free ones, we would surely see a dramatic drop in spammers registering in forums.
We'd certainly see a drop in spam activity at the UK Debate if we banned all free email domains but we'd also see a reduction in genuine signups using those free accounts too.
As forum admins we have to make a balanced decision regarding whole domain banning; personally I've elected to allow most freemails.
What grinds me is not necessarily the spammers (although obviously they all deserve to face a long, lonely cyber-death) but the domain owners such as Google who do nothing to prevent people abusing their name.
How difficult can it be for an Internet giant to provide a form to report abuser details and then act on it?
Not difficult at all I'd say - and that leads me to believe that the Gman (and other freebies) are actively promoting spam by their reluctance to accept that the spam fairies are real.

The thing is (and I know I'm jinxing myself with every word) , it's been so long since I've had a posted spam hit from MSN, Hotmail, or Yahoo that I cannot remember the last time I had to deal with one. Indeed, looking at my log, I only have one marked instance of posted spam from any of them, and that was from yahoo.ca.

I know there are spammers who work through those services, but the volume of spam coming out of any of them, or even all of them put together, as compared to the volume coming out of Google seems insignificant. I cannot believe that Gmail is being hit so much harder than any of the other major free services. So what is it that the others are doing that Google isn't?

Captain Red · 2008-04-08 9:31 am

An addition to the Google-Spam story:

"Gmail CAPTCHA Cracked"

That's from a bit over a month ago. Noticed because of a link from this other story on Slashdot:

"Some Anti-Spam Vendors blocking and slowing Gmail"

So... Google's CAPTCHA gets cracked, and more than a month on they haven't managed to clean up the mess. If this were March 1st, I'd have more sympathy for them.

Dan · 2008-05-12 7:17 pm

I wrote to Google support about this months ago, and the response was to use the "report spam" abuse form on the Gmail site -- can't think of a URL now -- to report forum spammers. It's awkward, though, and either nobody is reporting forum spammers to Google, or they just don't care, given the amount of times I've searched for the username of a spammer with a Gamil address and found thousands of hits.

In my experience, with very strict spam prevention precautions in place (IP, domain and keyword blacklists, strong captcha, email validation, etc), maybe one in 12 users that register with a Gmail address are spammers. They're almost always SEO spammers from India: "I am finding this posting to be most useful. Please be sending me more informations please" with a link, revival of ancient threads with "recommendations" of relevant sites, profile spam, and so on. India is certainly no Nigeria, Russia or Bulgaria, but when I see a Gmail address with an Indian IP, I get very suspicious. To make things more confusing, Gmail is also extremely popular among legit Indian users; maybe 90% of legit Indian users on my forum registered with a Gmail address.

matera · 2008-07-05 3:43 pm

I happened to read this thread first, and had to put in my two bytes' worth. If I had to register in any forum using my old ISP address, I would have to forget about joining at all. My old addy is so spam-saturated (thanks, I think to some carelessness on the part of my ISP) that it is useless. I gave up using it entirely when the spamload went to a 300 per day average. I would have been hard put to sift out anything from the mess, I have poor eyesight and don't care for long lists. Besides, it is probably overflowing since I stopped clearing it out every day, a confirmation message would just bounce.

I have thought about getting a new e-mail account from the ISP, something toward the less-spammed end of the alphabet, but since I have several other accounts, including some with my own domain, I haven't bothered.

I use gmail for some forums. One reason gmail is so popular is that it is easy to access. I loathe any webmail interface, they are slow and awkward for me. Gmail is easy to check with a regular e-mail client. I figure that if I hit a bad site and my gmail starts getting spammed, I can filter it or trash it.

I am not trying to defend Google, just explaining why I use gmail and why an ISP e-mail is not always a good thing. Another thing -- some people do not have their own Internet access. They use library computers or other means of getting around the Web when they need to. I know some, I've helped some local people get a gmail account so they would have something.

forrie · 2008-07-06 3:24 am

goodman84 wrote:

I must say, I wonder how a bot gets threw its HARD HARD Visual Code thing, Have you ever clicked listen to the letters? Even a dam human can't make sense of it.

used to know an person that has coded into an online game, and crack the code section, the code is an image that he takes from his registration bot. sends if to the game, gets his users to tell him what the code on the image is, and then send that back to the bot to contuniue with registration. I dont know if he is still using this method to crack the image verification but it would not surprise me.

sref · 2008-08-29 11:38 am

Google is more interested in its SERP's than to help in the fight again spam, you can report spam to google via the webmaster tools, but I think that is more for spammy websites and black hat websites.

Apart from the odd made up email address sign ups it is all gmail at the moment, they are the biggest online firm and keep banging on about spam in the SERPs, why can't they do the same for email spamming especially now as they have such a huge percentage of the free mail market now.

When you are as big as them you only need to do what you think is right, I have never really liked Google but unfortunately if you work with online business you can not work or live with out them!

Jim54 · 2008-08-30 2:09 am

I have not found yahoo, google, or msn (hotmail) to be very responsive to my reports of spammers. My emails to them go unanswered. I am afraid that until we can get the International community concerned about spam, it is truly up to us.

sturmer88 · 2008-09-17 5:13 am

Jim54 wrote:

I have not found yahoo, google, or msn (hotmail) to be very responsive to my reports of spammers. My emails to them go unanswered. I am afraid that until we can get the International community concerned about spam, it is truly up to us.

While your correct about google they do nothing to close the accounts of spammers. With yahoo and hotmail they are very responsive. You just have to make the report out to the correct place. They even send you a reply once the account has been closed.

With hotmail you need to send the headers and message to:

report_spam@msn.com
report_spam@hotmail.com
abuse@msn.com
abuse@hotmail.com

I send duplicates to each above address. If you just send the report to the hotmail address allot of times it will go ignored. If it's a @live account then change the @hotmail report to @live but either way include the @msn.com address. I believe that is the one they check.

As for yahoo they no longer accept the normal abuse reports through e-mail. You need to goto their abuse report websight and fill out a report. It's the same type thing as collecting the headers and content

Yahoo abuse form:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/y … abuse.html

Yahoo Abuse (UK Ireland)

http://help.yahoo.com/l/uk/yahoo/mail/o … abuse.html

If it's a phishing letter from a yahoo account you FWD the letter along with headers to:

phishing@cc.yahoo-inc.com

If it's a phishing web sight you need to report to yahoo here is another online form:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/securi … shing.html

Since I started using these methods of reporting I have found within 48hours all spam accounts get shut down immediately through yahoo and hotmail. Google is the only one that does nothing.

Last edited by sturmer88 (2008-09-17 5:14 am)

Ax Slinger · 2008-09-17 4:39 pm

Funny you should mention Yahoo email... You know who I get more spam email from than anyone else combined? Yahoo of course. Ever since my ISP (which is AT&T now, but I started with Pacific Bell 8 years ago) made a deal with Yahoo I can't shut them up no matter what I do. Except turn off the account in my email client, which I have done since I have other accounts anyway. I can't close the account because it's tied into my DSL account, but I don't have to use it.

The funniest email I get from them is one saying my email program is insecure and that I need to make some changes in order to continue using email with my account from them. I did what it said to do over a year ago, following their instructions to the letter. But I still got them.

If I were to make the account active in my email program again I would get one of those emails every single day. You can't reply to them, and calling Yahoo about them is useless. I called them to say it's being sent in error and they kept saying it was my fault that I was getting them. It couldn't possibly be a problem on their end. They wouldn't listen to a word I said. (Big surprise there, eh?)

So I just told them they were typical Yahoo's working for Yahoo and hung up. Then I called AT&T and told them (once again) what a huge mistake it was to be dealing with them in the first place. They said that I had previously told them that about 10 times, because the operators had made notes each time, and that other customers have told them the same thing. So I said "Well, have you got the message yet?" No, of course not...

#1 2008-04-05 3:02 pm

Why does Google love spam?

#2 2008-04-05 6:22 pm

Re: Why does Google love spam?

#3 2008-04-05 7:38 pm

Re: Why does Google love spam?

#4 2008-04-07 7:42 am

Re: Why does Google love spam?

#5 2008-04-07 9:52 am

Re: Why does Google love spam?

#6 2008-04-07 2:31 pm

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#7 2008-04-08 3:31 am

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#8 2008-04-08 9:31 am

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#9 2008-05-12 7:17 pm

Re: Why does Google love spam?

#10 2008-07-05 3:43 pm

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#11 2008-07-06 3:24 am

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#12 2008-08-29 11:38 am

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#13 2008-08-30 2:09 am

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#14 2008-09-17 5:13 am

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#15 2008-09-17 4:39 pm

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