Spammers Abuse Google Docs
June 12, 2008 by Antivirus Ware.com - Download Norton Antivirus software instantly!Spammers will stop at nothing to gain access to your e-mail box and now they are e
xploiting Google to do just that. Google has a lot of credibility in the online world and because of that spam filters do not regard Google links as spam. This has led many spammers to use the docs.google.com domain to get past the filters and into the e-mail boxes of millions of people.
The saying that one bad apple spoils the bunch may eventually apply to the doc.google.com domain now and lead to it being banned by many e-mail filters because of these spammers. Unfortunately, this will lead to people who are legitimately using Google docs being flagged as spam as well. They can’t block the Google URL altogether because of its number of legitimate uses, so they will have to block links with the doc.google.com extension.
Currently the practice is not widespread because for spammers the practice has its downfalls. First, they can only embed links to their actual site in the .doc page not the actual e-mail. Additionally, as they are discovered and they are banned by Google, their ability to create new accounts is hampered by Google’s CAPTCHA program that prevents automated account creation.
