I maintain a Bebo profile for work. Personally, I’m not a great fan of Bebo, but I can understand why it’s one of the most popular sites in the country, and when your customers are part of the Bebo generation, it’s one of those things that you have to do.
What bugs me though is the fact that over the last few weeks, there’s been a huge increase in the amount of spam being sent on the Bebo network. Being the conscientious Internet user that I am, I of course report any spam received to Bebo.
I report spam because I loath spammers with a depth that is hard to describe. They are the absolute dregs of the Internet community. They prey on the computer illiterate, easily led and the just downright terminally stupid. Spammers create such a nuisance that a lot of time and resources are lost just to dealing with the vast amount of spam generated by these scumbags. In my opinion, anyone convicted of spamming should be left on a desert island, as far away from computer access as possible, and left to fend for themselves. Being the bottom-living scum that they are, it wouldn’t surprise me if even their SOS messages became an effort to hawk dodgy pharmaceuticals, fake watches and penny shares. OK, ok, rant over, back to Bebo’s Spam Policy.
Bebo’s spam policy pisses me off just as much as any spammer would:
What is considered Spam?
Spam is a comment or posting that bears no relationship to the content to which it’s related. For example, if someone uploads a video and all the comment says is ‘Check out ma’ page’ then that is clearly Spam. Multiple postings of the same comment is also Spam.What happens after I report Spam?
All reports of Spam will be manually reviewed. If the reviewer agrees that it is Spam then the poster will be blocked from further posts for a certain period.How long are Spammers blocked for?
It all depends how many times they have Spammed. The first time will be just 8 hours. The second time 24 hours. The third time 3 days. The more complaints received the longer the block will be for.
I can understand that a social networking site such as Bebo has to be careful when it comes to dealing with spam – too harsh a policy and anybody with a grudge can report a user for sending spam and innocent users could end up losing their profiles.
But when Bebo say that they manually review each report before taking action, then simply blocking spammers is a cop-out. To me Bebo are saying that they recognise that a spammer is sending possible pornographic spam to young kids, (every piece of spam I’ve received over the last few weeks has been links to porn websites), but all they’ll do is slap them on the wrist and leave the spammer keep their profile. That to me is a spam policy that is bordering on the criminally negligent.
Spam like this should be removed, the sender banned, the originating IP address logged and the senders ISP notified. The ISP should then notify the user and cut their access to the Net. Now some will make the argument that the majority of spam is generated on ordinary user machines which have been unknowingly compromised and are part of a “zombie network”. To that I say, “So? They should still lose their Internet access.”
If your computer has been compromised, and you don’t know about it, then you should be kicked off the Internet until you have resolved the problem. If you’re computer is under the control of another party, then chances are they’ll probably have your credit card number, bank details and more than enough information to steal your identity. Keeping you off the Internet and preventing your computer from passing on your personal information is doing you a favour.
I’d happily sign up with any ISP that promised to do this. Start with the backbone providers and let it trickle down to the major ISP’s and from them to smaller ISP’s, and we’d eventually have a lot less spam on the Internet.
This problem is really threatening to Bebo, and getting ever more noticeable. We also run a few client accounts – being a youth marketing agency – and we are getting deluged with spam friend adds, wall comments etc.
They need to put some more resource into sorting this, or else lose users. They do a lot interesting and creative commercial content partnerships and by appearances seem to be doing well out of it. Maybe they need to chuck some $$$ from advertisers into protecting their site.
You make a good point about the exposure of porn to minors. This is largely an under-18 audience and they should show they take this more seriously.
The problem seems to be getting worse, rather than better. Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a marked increase in the amount of spam on Bebo. Most of it seems to be coming via Bebo Mobile, so there’s obviously an issue with how content from that service is verified and checked.
From a marketing point of view, I’m beginning to think that having a Bebo profile is becoming more of a liability. I have only one profile to worry about – anyone with multiple profiles to take care of must be putting in significant resources just to try and stay ahead of the problem.
You’re right, Bebo do make a lot of money from their advertisers, and if the site becomes plagued with spam profiles, then the advertisers will eventually move elsewhere. Will this be how Bebo dies?
you’re absolutely right! bebo’s so-called spam reporter is an absolute joke! people are creating false profiles for the specific purpose of sending out spam and bebo is doing absolutely nothing about it! i get several e-mails a week from some person with a wierd name sending me a link to an msn account. Can’t bebo do something more? Surely they can ban specific IP addresses, or if it’s through mobile they can ban phone numbers?
I heard a rumour once that bebo are accepting money from these people in exchange for sending these spam e-mails. if this is true what the hell do these people think they’re playing at!? I cannot believe Bebo can’t do anything about this. WHAT THESE SPAMMERS ARE DOING IS CRIMINAL! Why haven’t the police been called in to help sort this problem out? THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE SHOULD BE JAILED!
Richy,
I agree with you that Bebo need to do more about this problem.
Regarding your suggestion that Bebo are accepting payment for allowing spam, do you have any proof of this? It’s a serious accusation to make, and such an accusation requires proper evidence to back it up.
Regards,
Paul.
Great post — I’ve now turned off my bebo email notifications.
I wouldn’t mind if all the messages were different, but they’re nearly all identical in wording and even profile picture.
Put up a picture of what it looks like to me on my blog here.
http://www.storygas.com/2009/03/my-bebo-inbox.html
I like bebo – but their silence on spam is deafening.
Bebo are shooting themselves in the foot with their current spam policy.
Businesses are being convinced to use social networking and they’ll happily spend real money to make it work for them. But no reputable business wants to be associated with the type of spam that is so prevalent on Bebo on the moment. For them it’s all about image, and Bebo’s image is going downhill rapidly.
Without a decent spam policy in place, Bebo will lose out to Facebook, Orkut, Twitter etc.