Spim: A cousin of spam that's growing fast...
Dealing with spim -- the new spam...
In the very unlikely event that you are not yet totally
disgusted with spam, unscrupulous marketers are now also
going after instant messaging (IM) users -- and the result
is called 'spim.'
Although spim nowhere near as big a problem as spaham, spim
has been growing dramatically in recent weeks. Yahoo reports
that less than 2% of its IM traffic is spim. However, the
Radicati Group estimates that the number of spim messages
will triple by the end of the year -- to about 1.2 billion
IMs.
The Gartner Group predicts that by the end of 2005, IM will
surpass email as the primary way that people interact
electronically. Whether or not they are correct, since both
personal and business IM are clearly growing extremely
rapidly, spim is something to watch out for.
You can read more about how to deal with spim abuse at:
==> http://scambusters.org/a/spim.html
This article on spim was originally published in Internet
ScamBusters issue #76. Click on the link to see the articles
on topics other than spim in this issue.
