Spim: A cousin of spam that's growing fast...
Dealing with spim -- the new spam...
In the very unlikely event that you are not yet totally disgusted with spam, unscrupulous marketers are now also going after instant messaging (IM) users -- and the result is called 'spim.'
Although spim nowhere near as big a problem as spaham, spim has been growing dramatically in recent weeks. Yahoo reports that less than 2% of its IM traffic is spim. However, the Radicati Group estimates that the number of spim messages will triple by the end of the year -- to about 1.2 billion IMs.
The Gartner Group predicts that by the end of 2005, IM will surpass email as the primary way that people interact electronically. Whether or not they are correct, since both personal and business IM are clearly growing extremely rapidly, spim is something to watch out for.
You can read more about how to deal with spim abuse at:
==> http://scambusters.org/a/spim.html
This article on spim was originally published in Internet ScamBusters issue #76. Click on the link to see the articles on topics other than spim in this issue.