Instant Messaging spam isn't new to a lot of us, but for people who have just opened up a new Skype account it may be the first encounter you have. Last week, for example, when I was happily was working away, a rude message appeared from a random user, asking whether I would like to see "naughty things". This very unethical spammer was trying to push me towards his adult site via his spammy messages.
This is potentially the worst form of spam I have ever encountered. I'm not easily offended, but he could just as easily been chatting to my seven year old daughter. It's unlikely that these highly unethical spammers check to make sure they're only spamming over 18s - but whatever age you are, receiving this type of spam can be very offensive.
My first reaction to this kind of spam is to ignore it; close the message window and carry on with my work; but this persistent spammer kept IMing me until I was forced to stop work and take notice. This was obviously the intention of the spammer, and so his job was done: I had been successfully spammed. Annoyed at having been interrupted by this spam, I set about finding out how to stop such blatant abuse.
Fortunately Skype is not an amateurish program, and it does have simple ways for you to make sure you don't encounter this form of spam. These spam messages obviously don't come from your friends, so you can choose to receive messages only from the people on your contacts list, hence stopping any spammy stranger from sending you messages.
If you go to tools > options in your Skype you can choose the privacy tab and click on a radio button that will allow chats only from people that are in your contact list. This means that you won't get instant messages from anyone that you haven't added to your friends list, and so you won't get unsolicited messages from unethical spammers.
Skype is a wonderful program, and it is a terrible abuse of its services that spammers will go to any lengths to push their products. Like many things on the internet today, however, Skype have quick and easy ways of battling the unethical spammer. It is only through the combination of web forces worldwide that we will make sure that our programs and services are spam proof; that we will start to beat the spammer, and eventually destroy the world of spam!
