Archive for the ‘SPAM’ Category

Wish I’d Said That

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Dammit, SEOGuy!  seo_guy_logo

Talking about best practices and integrity in the SEO world…

There are so many unscrupulous companies in this space who promise #1 rankings in 2 weeks or less, charging ridiculous fees and setting false expectations.

I found this while doing some research on domain name aliases, and even though this post didn’t exactly answer my question, (;-)) the principles stated were expressed about as well as they possibly could be.

Enjoy.

BTW. I found what I was looking for here.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

Posted in SPAM, search stuff | No Comments »

Norton Security Deserves Root Canal

Monday, January 5th, 2009

I don’t profess to be an IT guy, in spite of working in technology, although I help my wife’s home business in this capacity.

Over the holiday she asked me to check out one of her computers because it was spawning messages that looked suspicious to her and she wanted to make sure the computer hadn’t picked up a virus.

It turned out to be messaging from a trial installation of Norton Security Scan that must have come with the computer. Because Trend Micro is installed, running and paid for a year, I told her I would erase the installation of Norton so she wouldn’t be further bothered.

Wishful thinking.

Norton has apparently installed this in such a way that it’s re-spawning outside the Windows XP environment, because I deleted it through control panel twice, only to have it re-load itself during the reboot process. Also, after the THIRD DELETION, I searched and deleted every file incidence of “symantec” and “norton” in both the directory structure and registry….and again it re-spawned. Evil. Pure evil.

Once I searched the web for “can’t delete Norton Security Scan” I found a bunch of posts about this problem, most of whom share my opinion of the malicious nature of Norton’s trial installation.

I downloaded a program designed to erase the Norton installation (symNRT.exe), ran the delete routine through XP and then ran the delete software, and FINALLY the trial installation of Norton was gone.

Needless to say, Norton is on my “do not buy” list after this. Try Trend Micro if you’re searching for a good firewall/security suite for your computer or home network.

Here’s a couple links if you’re having the same issue:

MajorGeeks.com

BleepingComputer.com

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in SPAM, customer experience, online marketing, privacy & security | No Comments »

2/3 of All SPAM Killed Yesterday (temporarily)

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

Amazingly, and unfortunately only temporary, a group of ISP’s effectively killed 2/3 of US email spam yesterday by closing down unscrupulous California hosting provider, McColo. Here’s the original release in CrunchGear.

Apparently a similar phenomenon occurred some weeks ago with the blocking of Intercage, but within about a week, the spammers relocated, largely to McColo, and re-established themselves.

It’s a bit mind-numbing that so much obnoxious SPAM could be concentrated in one hosting solution. The somewhat vigilante solution provided by this group of ISP’s is the only effective anti-SPAM activity, as the courts are bogged down in where SPAM falls in the grand scheme of free speech.

Certainly the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) was a partial solution. However, it only provides that:

  • False and misleading header information is banned
  • Deceptive subject lines are prohibited
  • Opt-out methods must be provided
  • Commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and it must include the sender’s valid physical postal address
  • Receivers must be warned of sexually explicit material

We need a “do not email” registry that has law enforcement behind it, so that these companies can effectively be neutralized. It certainly won’t be the end of SPAM, but it will greatly reduce it and the cloud cover it provides for all of the malwear and viruses hidden in the email assault.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in ISP's, SPAM, customer experience, email marketing, legal issues, online marketing, privacy & security | No Comments »

You May Already be Hijacked

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

I missed this article in January, but happened upon a link to it in reading this article about the recent spate of SPAM.

If you read the January article, you may become as alarmed as me about the influx of botnets, and the estimated 10% of all computers infected by such malware. We all know we’re being attacked by viruses and spyware all the time, but this percentage of computers under someone else’s control, especially when users don’t realize they’ve been hacked, is pretty alarming.

Granted, the information is coming from spyware and security companies who have a vested interest in scaring us into upgraded purchases of their products, but the prognosis is pretty dire and the solutions temporary.

Suffice it to say, if you haven’t already scrubbed and sanitized your online behavior, this should be your wake-up call.

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat

blog it

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John + Partners.

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Posted in SPAM, browsers, customer experience, privacy & security | No Comments »

Zango a Digital Plague

Monday, July 30th, 2007

Thank you, Ben Edelman, for being a watchdog on Zango, notorious adware propagator.

Under the pretense of “creating a Content Economy built on a foundation of safe and ethical practices by protecting consumer privacy while offering a fulfilling and high-value content experience” (courtesy of Wikipedia), Zango had an FTC settlement in November of 2006 requiring better disclosure of its adware practices.

As Mr. Edelman reports, Zango continues to practice surreptitious installations of ActiveX controls and banners without prominent disclosure to the site visitor.

No content is worth this type of practice and scrupulous advertisers should avoid at all costs stooping to such depths. Our foundation for marketing success is trust between brand and consumer and Zango is like a plague worse than SPAM in undermining that relationship.

KidWithMatches is the personal blog of Pete Eberbach, VP Director of Online Marketing & Technology with St. John & Partners.

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Posted in SPAM, browsers, display advertising, legal issues, privacy & security | No Comments »

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