Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send an unsolicited message (spam), especially advertising, as well as sending messages repeatedly on the same site. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social spam, spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in every dish and where patrons annoyingly chant "Spam!" over and over again.
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes publicly visible.
Gmail is a free email service developed by Google. Users can access Gmail on the web and using third-party programs that synchronize email content through POP or IMAP protocols. Gmail started as a limited beta release on April 1, 2004 and ended its testing phase on July 7, 2009.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing.
Online advertising, also called online marketing or Internet advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. Many consumers find online advertising disruptive and have increasingly turned to ad blocking for a variety of reasons. When software is used to do the purchasing, it is known as programmatic advertising.
Disposable email addressing, also known as DEA or dark mail, refers to an approach where a unique email address is used for every contact or entity. The benefit is that if anyone compromises the address or utilises it in connection with email abuse, the address owner can easily cancel it without affecting any of their other contacts.
Email harvesting is the process of obtaining lists of email addresses using various methods. Typically these are then used for bulk email or spam.
A social networking service is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relations with other people who share similar personal or career interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
The eCRUSH network consisted of two sites: eCRUSH.com and eSPIN.com. The network was acquired by Hearst Media on December 31, 2006. The original eCRUSH site was opened on Valentine's Day, 1999 in Chicago by Clark Benson and Karen DeMars Pillsbury. It pre-dated social networking sites such as Friendster.com, MySpace.com and Facebook.com.
XING is a European career-oriented social networking site for enabling a small-world network for professionals. Available interface languages include Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Turkish. By displaying how each member is connected to any other member, it visualizes the small-world phenomenon.
Blue Frog was a freely-licensed anti-spam tool produced by Blue Security Inc. and operated as part of a community-based system which tried to persuade spammers to remove community members' addresses from their mailing lists by automating the complaint process for each user as spam is received. Blue Security maintained these addresses in a hashed form in a Do Not Intrude Registry, and spammers could use free tools to clean their lists. The tool was discontinued in 2006.
Mobile marketing is multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, tablets, or any other related devices through websites, E-mail, SMS and MMS, social media, or mobile applications. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas. In a more theoretical manner, academic Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device".
Tagged is a social discovery website based in San Francisco, California, founded in 2004. It allows members to browse the profiles of any other members, and share tags and virtual gifts. Tagged claims it has 300 million members. As of September 2011, Quantcast estimates Tagged monthly unique users at 5.9 million in the United States, and 18.6 million globally. Michael Arrington wrote in April 2011 that Tagged is most notable for the ability to grow profitably during the era of Facebook.
GLEE.com is a social networking site that is geared toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. The site was launched in February 2007 by Community Connect Inc.
Nexopia is a Canadian social networking website created in 2003, by Timo Ewalds. It was designed for ages 14 and up, which was later lowered to 13. Users are able to create and design profiles, a friends list, blogs, galleries, compose articles and forums. Interaction is accomplished through an internal personal messaging system, and public user comments on profiles, blogs or through threads and posts on the forums. In November 2012, Nexopia was acquired by digital ad network Ideon Media.
The Network Advertising Initiative is an industry trade group founded in 2000 that develops self-regulatory standards for online advertising. Advertising networks created the organization in response to concerns from the Federal Trade Commission and consumer groups that online advertising — particularly targeted or behavioral advertising — harmed user privacy. The NAI seeks to provide self-regulatory guidelines for participating networks and opt-out technologies for consumers in order to maintain the value of online advertising while protecting consumer privacy. Membership in the NAI has fluctuated greatly over time, and both the organization and its self-regulatory system have been criticized for being ineffective in promoting privacy.
Spam 2.0 is termed as propagation of unsolicited, anonymous, mass content to infiltrate legitimate Web 2.0 applications. An unsolicited blog comment, a promotional post in online discussion boards, a manipulated Wiki pages, a fake and attractive user profiles in social networking website are examples of this new generation of spam. Abuse any kind of Web 2.0 application for the purpose of spamming is known as Spam 2.0, therefore it includes comment spam, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, Internet forum spam, social networking spam, and social spam.
Social spam is unwanted spam content appearing on social networking services, social bookmarking sites, and any website with user-generated content. It can be manifested in many ways, including bulk messages, profanity, insults, hate speech, malicious links, fraudulent reviews, fake friends, and personally identifiable information.
A web beacon is one of various techniques used on web pages and email, to unobtrusively allow checking that a user has accessed some content. Web beacons are typically used by third parties to monitor the activity of users at a website for the purpose of web analytics or page tagging. They can also be used for email tracking. When implemented using JavaScript, they may be called JavaScript tags.
