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Communication Links Tips Workplace

Controlling IM Spam

Here at Hosted IM World, we’ve had some problems lately controlling spam comments that are appearing on our blog. Just since Sunday, we have had over 50 spam comments from people trying to sell everything from Viagra to photos of  Megan Fox nude. We have no choice but to spend time clicking ‘Spam’ on each of the 52 comments, hoping for it to die down. In the mean time, researching plugins and steps to take to cut down on the number of spammers may also help.

Just as there are spam emails and spam blog comments, there are also spammers that threaten to bother you on an instant messenger program. The download instant messenger programs I’ve had the most trouble with are MSN Messenger and AIM (although AIM has significantly cut down on this recently).

In order to combat spam IMs, which is the occurrence of random screen names sending you messages that say something along the lines of “Look at this cool new product I’ve found!” or “Still need a job? Visit this site”, you can do 2 things:

  1. Change your privacy settings to make you unsearchable and only give your screen name out to people you trust.
  2. If you have a severe problem with spam, change your screen name and then do step 1.
  3. Download instant messenger programs that are hosted on a secure server, like the new *free* Public Brosix 3 Beta, which is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. This will close your IM activity from the rest of the internet, eliminating spam.

As technology develops, spam will hopefully decrease, but until that time, download instant messenger programs that have good spam filters and are dedicated to eliminating sketchy users with bad intentions.