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SiteAdvisor Warns Users About E-Cards
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-05-10
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Nothing beats the feeling of assuaged guilt quite like a $5.89 greeting card purchased and sent to Mom for Mother's Day, and for those who want to take a shortcut and send her an e-card instead, beware of what you choose for that service.
 | | E-Cards Can Lead to Spam |  |
When it comes to the Internet, the gift that keeps on giving could be the results of picking an electronic greeting card site that rewards you with spam well after Mom has filed your e-card under /usr/local/ (or if she hated it, sent it to /dev/null instead).
McAfee's SiteAdvisor, a product that helps identify websites with a tendency to do bad things like sign you up for spam, recently blogged about ten sites to avoid when searching for just the right e-card. The company found that, while using its plug-in, two results on the first page of a Google search for "Mother's Day card" triggered red flags.
Using sites that have been flagged by SiteAdvisor may lead to a bad case of inbox indigestion. With the ten sites they listed, SiteAdvisor noted how test email addresses they used for the signup process found lots of spam flowing into them afterwards.
SiteAdvisor called out funnyreign.com (link goes to SiteAdvisor) for special attention. "We typed our e-mail address into the forms we encountered while surfing funnyreign.com's web site. Since then, we've been receiving an average of 1075 e-mails a week, with an average SpamAssassin score of 11," they said.
Other sites like eforu.com and ecard4all.com committed malware sins like trying to install unwanted software on the test machines used to access their sites. Another site prompted users to download a toolbar that shall remain nameless here; suffice it to say system administrators will recognize it immediately on site and grind their teeth while doing so.
SiteAdvisor recommended e-card sites like Hallmark and American Greetings as safe choices for the thoughtful sender. Because Mom wouldn't want you to spam yourself just for her.
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Tags: E-Cards, SiteAdvisor
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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