November 10th, 2005
Did Friendster Spam You Too?
By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
I hadn’t really thought about it until I read the News.com article, but friendster spammed me as well. Did they spam you too? Apparently the competition with Myspace.com is pretty tough, so they decided to resend all of the invite your friend emails that went unanswered within 3 to 7 days after the first invite, and then decided to do all of the older invitees in one mass emailing.
Friendster recently sent a mass e-mail to try to make new friends for its social network. Instead, it made some enemies.
The one-time hot spot dug deep into its network to pull out the e-mail addresses of people who didn’t initially respond to friends’ invites to join the online social network a year or more ago. The e-mails implied they were coming from a friend when, in fact, they were being sent by the company.
The e-mails, which went out during the last two weeks, show just how tough the competition is getting for Friendster as it battles growing online giant MySpace.com. Source: News.com
We Say: I sure call it spam, heck, I didn’t want the email the first time, so take the hint, and loose that email address. Did you ever notice when someone is accused of spamming, it’s always referred to as a one time mailing, like that separates it from “everyday” spam.
Paul says:
Get a life dude, you are the one that signed up for the site in the first place. People whine way to much about so called ’spam’ this atleast came from a website that you signed up for. Who gives a crap. Why don’t you go in your real mail box and pick out every advertisment you get and go complain to them. Atleast email you can just delete
November 10th, 2005 at 12:52 pm
Jimmy says:
Dude, did you read the article? Re-read it and come back and we’ll discuss it. It comes from the tell a friend pages, someone else typed in my email address, I ignored the first one, so, months later, they sent it again so I could delete it and ignore it again. I’ve never even been to the site, let alone signed up for anything.
November 10th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
David Johnston says:
lol, Paul. The whole point is that he *didn’t* sign up. He had a friend who invited him to use the site a long time ago and the site kept the email address his friend put in and later sent another request to him without his friend’s permission.
November 10th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
iampowered says:
Friendster or Foe!
For the last 2 weeks or so, Friendster.com (the social-networking website) has been mass e-mailing people that have not actually signed up to be part of its network. How could this happen and why is this a big deal? Well…
November 10th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Did Friendster Spam You, Too?
Jimmy Daniels of RealTechNews writes: I hadn’t really thought about it until I read the News.com article, but Friendster spammed me as well. Did they spam you, too? Apparently the competition with MySpace.com is pretty tough, so it decided to resend a…
November 10th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
Tinman says:
Paul Paul Paul. You should have taken your time and deciphered what he was saying instead of your whining. Whether you like it or not, spam is spam. If you don’t sign up for something, then you shouldn’t get anything from them…… And speaking of signing up, apparently they don’t have a verification of email submissions, which is wrong to start with.
Now run along Paulie and find something to do…..
November 11th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
Jason says:
It’s not only people who never signed up that are pissed off. I signed up in 2003 or 2004 and have not used it for ages. When I first signed up, I had invited some friends to use it. If they didn’t, I accepted it and moved on.
Then suddenly, two years later, without my permission, Friendster sends a whole shitload of emails to people I had originally sent to. I didn’t want to ask them to join two years later. For all they know, I could have had a restraining order, forbidding me to communicate with someone (I don’t). Some of my friends were saying, “Dude, get a life, I don’t want to ‘be your friend’ on friendster.”
Bottom line is that it was a stupid, desperate thing for Friendster to do, fucking up their brand and instilling distrust in their service. I for one, will probably never use Friendster again, and definitely will not give them any email addresses.
November 14th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
janet says:
Spam or SCAM?
Read ahead. For you guys who take all the invites.
weblog
Saturday 5 November 2005
It had to happen: MySpace spam
Every great medium and popular community gets hit by it: Spam. Bots. Junk content. First it was e-mail, then the blogosphere, then instant messaging. Now it has come to MySpace. Here
is an excerpt from the profile of “Maria”, who sent me a friend request today:
yahhhh and when I need money I fill out some online surveys which pay you for your opinion… if you want to make about $400 a week.. filling out a bunch of surveys go here Top Online Surveys… they pay me about $45 per survey.. and I get my little brother to do them for $5 each hahahha now that’s what I call child labor! that internet is so stupid.. with something as stupid as the internet around who the hell needs a job..
The profile has all the markings of artificiality: Two paragraphs of fake buffer text about the “person,” which is written in overly lax prose to appear casual and authentic, as well as one (and only one) modeling-type picture of a woman lifted somewhere off the Internet. This person was even clever enough to recruit other “friends” who have left comments relating to the the surveys he’s pushing.
Why am I pointing this out? Because it is surely the start of a trend on its way in. History repeats itself, and I know I could very soon be inundated with fake friend requests, junk messages, and comments laden with advertising.
Tom would be wise to stop this before it starts.
2:13 PM Pacific Link Print E-mail 13 comments
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Comments (13)
#1yeah, same exact thing happened to me this morning except it was from katie, who shockingly had the same friends and same comments as maria.
Posted by tom on November 6, 2005 at 9:12 AM
#2Blog spam is a new trend? Have you been living under an Internet rock?
Posted by Chuck on November 7, 2005 at 1:58 PM
#3Chuck,
Blog spam? I was talking about MySpace spam.
I have written about blog spam several times, including here:
“Comment spam buy viagra on the rise”
Posted by Andrew Phelps on November 7, 2005 at 4:55 PM
#4I agree “Tom” should block it … however Tom was bought out by Fox…. and Rupert M usually has his say …
Posted by courtney on November 8, 2005 at 11:01 AM
#5And for well over a half-billion dollars!
Posted by Andrew Phelps on November 8, 2005 at 11:13 AM
#6there’s another one named erica…
Posted by rachael on November 10, 2005 at 11:23 AM
#7I just got this spam too from some other girl I didn’t know on myspace. Same exact friends and comments, different name and picture. So does this mean we’re not really friends?
Posted by Andrew J on November 10, 2005 at 1:25 PM
#8GAH! I saw the same thing, and as skeptical as I am about internet advertisements and such, I was tired and not thinking, and like a moron, dooped out of $35. Oh well, it’s my own fault for being such a nitwit.
The profile I went to says the EXACT thing you quoted above. Oh well, guess I’ll stop searching for ways to get my money back.
I just hope they don’t use my credit card number anywhere else… =\
Posted by El on January 5, 2006 at 2:15 PM
#9I actually spent the money…then wrote to the site saying I wanted it back and they never sent anything…but then coincidentally, this “Sandy” person suddenly requests that I be her friend on myspace. It’s the same chick with the same profile as all us other losers who fell for it. I have sent the email to the “toponlinesurveys.com” member email over 20 times now and they never reply.
Posted by Jane on January 27, 2006 at 2:23 AM
#10The same thing happened to me her name was Nina.
Posted by lynsie on February 4, 2006 at 11:33 AM
#11Now she’s going by the name “Rebecca”
Posted by Jason on February 8, 2006 at 8:40 AM
#12B*tch’s name is Tila now…. thank god I did a search and found this site before I fell for it….
Posted by Kristi on February 9, 2006 at 10:21 PM
February 10th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Primal Massacre says:
Primal Massacre…
news…
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Seven Worlds says:
Seven Worlds…
news…
June 6th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
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May 12th, 2008 at 2:26 am