Sunday, October 16, 2011

Social network invitations

As if I was not irritated enough about social networks, they have now also become the source, directly or indirectly, of a big percentage of the spam we see. Invitations, always from people I don't know, from Facebook, LinkedIn, and many sites I haven't heard of, coming in, in a steady stream. It's like these parasites (para sites) simply won't stop until they have infected every living organism on earth.

3 comments:

M. Pipolo said...

Eolake, you run a popular website with a personal touch. People know your name and feel comfortable with you because of the relaxed way you project your personality online. Of course you're going to get invitations from people you don't know.

CalgaryMark said...

I believe Facebook has a search device that hunts out names and e-mails it doesn't have and then 'pushes' people to join. Note I said 'believe' - I have no evidence. In any event, when someone joins FB, it (and Google and others) offers to harvest all your contacts and let them know you are on FB, and invites you to join as well. I write to the original sender (not using the link provided!) who often is 'horrified' that I have been spammed and I then put Facebook on my black list, together with the 'friend's' Facebook link. Facebook itself also offered to prevent other requests, since they now have my e-mail address (but I have no FB account - nor will I). I have accepted their 'offer' - we'll see what happens.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

MP: good point.

CM: yes, interesting. It's generally interesting how almost totally shameless FaceBook is as an entity.