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McAfee Spot Spammer Challenge!
Techtree News Staff, Aug 17, 2006 1817 hrs ISTMcAfee has issued an online quiz, complete with a challenge to Web users that urges, "Can you spot sites that cause spam".
McAfee has issued an online quiz, complete with a challenge to Web
users that urges, "Can you spot sites that cause spam ".
The 8-question quiz presents consumers with pairs of Web sites, and asks them to judge which of the two sites is likely to guard their e-mail address. The stakes for failing are high. McAfee says that when it registered at each of the unsafe sites in the eight pairs, it received more than 2,500 e-mails each week.
According to company sources, the quiz uses data from McAfee
SiteAdvisor, which has pioneered Web safety by testing and rating, on an ongoing basis, nearly every trafficked site on the Internet. The examples in the quiz are taken from more than 6.4 million Web sites, which McAfee SiteAdvisor has independently tested and rated for Web safety issues including spyware, viruses, exploits, online scams, and of course, spam.
Typically, McAfee SiteAdvisor tests a Web site's e-mail practices by registering with a unique, one-time-use e-mail address. The pairs of sites used in the quiz come from common categories including free games, e-cards, online sweepstakes, credit cards, scholarships, online dating, jokes, and petitions.
Chris Dixon, director - product strategy, said, "This quiz was designed to deliver two very important messages. The first is that spam remains a significant problem. A single bad decision can render an e-mail address all but unusable. The second is that on the Web today, there is almost always a safe alternative for popular activities. The extra information provided by McAfee SiteAdvisor's test results can help users make smarter click decisions."
McAfee claims that statistically speaking, registering on the eight sites flagged as unsafe resulted in 2,697 e-mails per week in the SiteAdvisor s test inboxes. That's 140,244 e-mails per year. Further, signing-up with the worst offender in the quiz resulted in 1,075 e-mails per week. Still ahead, the vast majority of e-mails received contained highly commercial content from third parties.
users that urges, "Can you spot sites that cause spam ".
The 8-question quiz presents consumers with pairs of Web sites, and asks them to judge which of the two sites is likely to guard their e-mail address. The stakes for failing are high. McAfee says that when it registered at each of the unsafe sites in the eight pairs, it received more than 2,500 e-mails each week.
According to company sources, the quiz uses data from McAfee
SiteAdvisor, which has pioneered Web safety by testing and rating, on an ongoing basis, nearly every trafficked site on the Internet. The examples in the quiz are taken from more than 6.4 million Web sites, which McAfee SiteAdvisor has independently tested and rated for Web safety issues including spyware, viruses, exploits, online scams, and of course, spam.
Typically, McAfee SiteAdvisor tests a Web site's e-mail practices by registering with a unique, one-time-use e-mail address. The pairs of sites used in the quiz come from common categories including free games, e-cards, online sweepstakes, credit cards, scholarships, online dating, jokes, and petitions.
Chris Dixon, director - product strategy, said, "This quiz was designed to deliver two very important messages. The first is that spam remains a significant problem. A single bad decision can render an e-mail address all but unusable. The second is that on the Web today, there is almost always a safe alternative for popular activities. The extra information provided by McAfee SiteAdvisor's test results can help users make smarter click decisions."
McAfee claims that statistically speaking, registering on the eight sites flagged as unsafe resulted in 2,697 e-mails per week in the SiteAdvisor s test inboxes. That's 140,244 e-mails per year. Further, signing-up with the worst offender in the quiz resulted in 1,075 e-mails per week. Still ahead, the vast majority of e-mails received contained highly commercial content from third parties.
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Rex
,Bangalore, on Aug 21, 2006 08:42 AM
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