Spam as a Darwinian Force

Apparently it’s not just working wives who can’t figure out how to combat spam and therefore let crappy projects fall by the wayside. Google’s letting their Google Groups rot on the vines as well. Score another one for the spammers:

Spammers are now spoofing the email addresses of existing group participants to sneak their messages through. Previously you would’ve seen a delightful “FREE MOVIE DOWNLOADS” spam from “freemovies123@gmail.com” – but now you’ll see it coming from existing group users – or even the group moderators themselves. This cheat completely bypasses the moderation system since the spammers are pretending to be pre-moderated users.

Guess they figure their resources are better spent on products like Gmail, which apparently costs $265 per user if you can sell it to the government.

This goes to show that it’s not the volume of spam that determines the success or failure of a legitimate project but rather the will for that project to survive. Spam is just one of those Darwinian forces that culls the web’s weak.

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One Response to “Spam as a Darwinian Force”

  1. fishers says:

    Loved yesterday’s post. First thing I’m thinking – “why on earth did someone like you encourage your better half to start a website”. Then I check further down my feed list and I get ‘linkMoses/Moaner’ ganning on about spam. Perfect end to a crappy day – LOL

    Gues who’s higher up my reader!