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{"id":397,"date":"2016-07-08T15:05:38","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T15:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icaruspressblog.wordpress.com\/?p=397"},"modified":"2019-04-17T11:49:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T11:49:53","slug":"uk-spam-complaints-up-by-whopping-43","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/08\/uk-spam-complaints-up-by-whopping-43\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Spam Complaints Up by Whopping 43%"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"personal\"$ The London Olympic Games are almost upon us, and it\u2019s no great surprise that there\u2019s been an uptick in spam activity related to the games<\/a>. Spammers love to latch onto any topic that will lower a person\u2019s guard long enough to click on a malicious link or open an attachment. The psychology is simple: pick a subject that\u2019s in everyone\u2019s mind and the battle is half-won. And in a year that\u2019s seen conflicting reports<\/a> and dramatic changes in the nature of e-mail spam<\/a>, it seems that the battlefield has changed, or perhaps more appropriately, grown, to include multiple scam methods.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the simple premise of economies of scale. Why just implement a spam e-mail and SMS campaign \u2013 a \u2018push\u2019 mechanism that requires the scammer to broadcast a message in the hopes that a user will read the e-mail and choose to click the link? It makes a lot of sense to target e-mail, SMS, as well as other methods like Twitter and Facebook \u2013 methods in which the user \u2018pulls\u2019 the message, in a sense, by actively participating when they log into the site and click links that appear to be valid messages from compromised friends, or scammers masquerading as site staff.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s long been a malady \u2013 a growing pain, really \u2013 of the Internet that users have had little control over what got delivered to their inboxes. Most users feel hopeless to do anything about it, and God forbid that they get scammed\u2026.what then? We don\u2019t really<\/em> know how successful the scammers have been over the past twenty or so years that e-mail scams have been around. In the early days of the Internet, people who succumbed to a scam probably reacted in much the same way you would today \u2013 call the police. But without laws, or even a general understanding of what the technology was all about, most people probably heard what you\u2019d expect the police to say at a time when Windows 95 wasn\u2019t yet available and Steve Jobs was still in exile from Apple: \u201cthere\u2019s nothing we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jump to 2012 and the story hasn\u2019t changed much. Your local po-po ain\u2019t going to be able to do much about a Nigerian \u2018prince\u2019 who just scammed your nana out of her life savings, unless that prince happens to show up in your neighborhood and gets nabbed for driving his Ferrari too fast<\/a>. Fortunately, Microsoft and several international law enforcement organizations have been working hard for you, shuttering botnets<\/a>, redirecting your DNS<\/a> so you can continue to friend people and fling angry birds at things, and putting bad little spammers behind bars<\/a>. Laws have been put in place<\/a>, but remain fairly toothless. So what\u2019s an honest, taxpaying citizen to do? Well, in the UK, you can give the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office the ability to fine<\/a> those individuals and organizations who have a love affair with bugging people.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the ICO was given the ability to levy fines up to \u00a3500,000, although they haven\u2019t had much success in finding someone to fine. They are, however, getting people riled up enough to do something about the glut of spam oozing out of inboxes. According to the BBC<\/a>, the ICO reports that consumer complaints over spam and e-mail have risen this year by a whopping 43%. The greatest complaints are over automated phone calls (35%), unwanted text messages (29%), live phone calls (19%) and email (14%).<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, like any public complaint forum, not every complaint is valid. According to the BBC, the ICO\u2019s annual report revealed that \u201cof the complaints made only 11% were considered for investigation. The majority – 60% – were classed as “ineligible” or “made too early”.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the 43% isn\u2019t quite so impressive when you consider that the total number of complaints only amounted to 7,095 in the last year. But it\u2019s still significant if you consider that people are taking matters into their own hands. Twenty years ago, people had little or no recourse when being electronically harassed, and twenty years later, at least we can vent a bit. And the ICO recognizes that it\u2019s faced with a mighty task. \u201cIt has proved difficult in the past,\u201d an ICO spokesman stated to the BBC, \u201cfor the ICO to get the information needed from telecommunications providers to allow us to sufficiently investigate spam.\u201d The ICO chooses to remain optimistic, and maybe some of those consumer complaints will result in a few hurtful fines. If nothing else, we are not nearly as helpless as we were twenty years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"