FU Spambots!

Spambots, spambots, spambots

They will track you down and find you, well its not really that bad but recently it has seemed like I am being constantly reminded about the negative aspects of having a life online.

I'm talking about spambots, if you are new to the phrase its basically an automated twitter account that will spew links saying things like 'OMG I have just won an iPad click this link to win your own' which will then probably take you to some pyramid scheme or maybe something more malicious. As a general rule of thumb do not click on links from sources you don't trust and you will be fine, common knowledge for most people that are online a lot, but its not that which annoys me its the fact that every facet of your on line life is bombarded by this stuff continually.

With twitter I have stopped complaining to my followers and just started reporting the accounts for spam, its good because the account is also blocked as well. But services like formspring which i thought was quite a nice little service where you can encourage people to ask you questions, within a week of opening the account I was getting questions like 'I had a crush on you for the longest time; please log onto this service and search for me' blatantly trying to get me to subscribe to some dating service (probably)!!

Most are easy to spot on twitter you will be followed by a user either expecting you to follow back so the can DM you dodgy links or you will get mentions from accounts that do not follow anyone or have any followers but have made thousands of tweets with exactly the same content in them but the only thing changing would be the @ twitter name

Please share you spambot stories with me and any further advice.