FTC To Host "Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions"

The Federal Trade Commission will host a two-day public event, "Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions," in Washington, DC on July 11 and 12, 2007. The summit will bring together experts from the business, government, and technology sectors, consumer advocates, and academics to explore consumer protection issues surrounding spam, phishing, and malware.

(PressZoom) - The Federal Trade Commission will host a two-day public event, "Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions," in Washington, DC on July 11 and 12, 2007. The summit will bring together experts from the business, government, and technology sectors, consumer advocates, and academics to explore consumer protection issues surrounding spam, phishing, and malware.

Some e-mail filtering companies have reported that the amount of unsolicited e-mails they process has been rising. According to the reports, the increased volume of spam is coming primarily from botnets, which are networks of hijacked personal computers that spammers use to conceal their identities and send spam and viruses.

In addition, the Commission's recent investigations suggest that spam is being used increasingly as a vehicle for launching harmful downloads, such as phishing and malware. This type of malicious spam goes beyond mere annoyance to consumers - it can result in significant harm by shutting down consumers' computers, enabling keystroke loggers to steal identities, and undermining the stability of the Internet.

As a follow-on to the Commission's 2003 Spam Forum, the two-day public summit will analyze malicious spam, shifts in spamming incentives and tactics, strategies for protecting consumers and businesses, and countermeasures for stopping malicious spammers and cybercriminals.

Topics are expected to include:

Defining the Problem: Earlier findings indicated that most spam was fraudulent, deceptive, and offensive. How has the nature of spam shifted? Is spam now being used for malicious and criminal purposes? Is this spam reaching consumers' inboxes or being filtered by internet service providers' filtering software?

New Methods for Sending Spam: To what extent, if any, have email address harvesting, dictionary attacks, and open proxys been replaced by botnets, zombies, and spam that uses images instead of text as the primary methods of spam distribution?

The Covert Economy: What are the financial incentives for malicious spammers? To what extent does stolen information, such as government-issued identity numbers, credit cards, bank cards and personal identification numbers, user accounts, and email addresses, play a role? What is the cost along the email chain to consumers, businesses, internet service providers, and networks?

Deterring Malicious Spammers and Cybercriminals: What are the investigatory challenges faced by law enforcement as spammers mask their identities and use obfuscatory techniques? What are effective countermeasures?

Emerging Threats: What emerging threats are occurring in media other than email including spam over instant messaging - SPIM - systems, spam over internet telephony - SPIT, and spam to mobile devices?

Putting Consumers Back in Control: How can we empower consumers and businesses in the fight against spam and malware?

Technological Tools for Keeping it Out of the Inbox: During the FTC's 2004 E-mail Authentication Summit, co-hosted with the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, the FTC initiated efforts to spur the development and wide- scale adoption of domain level e-mail authentication. Where does the implementation of e-mail authentication stand? What are other key spam-reducing tools?

Stakeholder Best Practices: What best practices should stakeholders adopt to reduce malicious spam and minimize its impact?

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the FTC's satellite building conference center, located at 601 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC Members of the public and press who wish to participate but who cannot attend can view a live Webcast of the summit on the FTC's Web site. Pre-registration is not required.

The Commission invites interested parties to submit requests to be panelists. The requests should be submitted electronically to SpamSummit@ftc.gov on or before May 18, 2007. The Commission asks interested parties to include a statement detailing their expertise on the issues to be addressed at the summit and complete contact information. Panelists selected to participate will be notified by June 1, 2007.

Any person also may submit written comments on the topics to be addressed at the summit. Comments must be received on or before May 18, 2007. For further information about the Summit and for specific information on sending comments, participating as a panelist, the Summit agenda, and contact information, please consult the FTC Web site at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/spamsummit/index.shtml.

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP ( 1-877-382-4357 ), or use the complaint form at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 1,600 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Claudia Bourne Farrell,
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2181
STAFF CONTACT:
Sana Coleman Chriss,
Bureau of Consumer Protection
202-326-2249

Best Legal Web Site Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association

New Web Marketing Association' Internet Standards Assessment Report includes historical data derived from a decade of hosting Internet Award Competition, WebAwards, and provides Best Practices for 'Legal Web Design'.

West Simsbury, CT (PRWeb) April 16, 2007 -- www.07webaward.org - The Web Marketing Association, host of leading web site awards competition WebAwards, released the Internet Standards Assessment Report (ISAR) to help the legal industry learn to create more effective and engaging web sites.

"As the standard of excellence for web sites continues to increase, consumers (and WebAward judges) are increasingly picky about what they consider to be an effective web site," said William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association, Inc. "Lawyers are not known to be risk takers and many of their web sites reflect that philosophy. The best legal Web sites are thought leaders for their areas of expertise, using corporate logs to write about important topics."

The WebAwards competition judges legal web sites on seven criteria that combined create award-winning web sites:
•    Design
•    Innovation
•    Content
•    Technology
•    Interactivity
•    Copywriting
•    Ease of use

Legal web sites are generally in line with overall Web Development, although there is a tendency to be slightly below the ISAR Index.

According to the ISAR study, content, design, copywriting and ease of use are legal web site's strong points, and they meet or exceed the 3-year criteria benchmark in ease of use. They tend to have the lowest scores for innovation and technology.

The 2006 WebAward for Best Legal Web site went to Thomson-FindLaw for Yanowitch Law, P.A.

Other past winners include:
•    2005 Frost Brown Todd LLC for Frost Brown Todd LLC
•    2004 Pierce Atwood for Pierce Atwood - Attorneys at Law
•    2003 Pepper Hamilton LLP for www.pepperlaw.com
•    2002 Lane Powell Spears Lubersky LLP for Lanepowell.com

A complete list of past winners can be found at http://legal.webaward.org

Companies and organizations wishing to have their legal web site evaluated against the ISAR Index and be considered for a WebAward, which can help boost a Web site's credibility and marketing efforts, can learn more at www.07webaward.org.

To request your copy of the 2007 WebAward ISAR report, please visit: http://www.webaward.org/isar_report.asp

The Internet Standards Assessment report and the 2007 WebAwards are sponsored by the following leading organizations: Burst Media, PRWeb, Misukanis & Odden, Small Army, SimpleFeed, ExactTarget, ad:tech conferences, NewsUSA, eComXpo, MediaPost's OMMA conference, TopRank Online Marketing, Creative Chocolate Printing Company, OTOlabs, Internet World UK, Search Engine Strategies, Webmaster Legal, Rovion's InPerson and eMarketer.

2007 WebAward Call for Entries
The Web Marketing Association is now accepting entries into its 11th annual international WebAward Competition. The WebAwards is the standards-defining competition that sets industry benchmarks that the Internet Standards Assessment report is based upon. The legal industry represents an important category in the WebAward competition, and the Web Marketing Association will again be honoring the Best Legal Web site of 2007. The deadline for entry is May 31, 2007 and the WebAward Web site is located at www.07webaward.org.

About the WebAwards
Now in its 11th year, the annual international WebAwards competition sets the standard of excellence in 96 industry categories by evaluating Web sites and defining benchmarks based on the seven essential criteria of successful Web site development. The goal of the Web Marketing Association, sponsor of the WebAwards, is to provide a forum to recognize the people and organizations responsible for developing some of the most effective Web sites on the Internet today. Entrants benefit from a Web site assessment by a professional judging panel and the marketing opportunities presented to an award-winning Web site. For more information, visit www.07webaward.org.

###

Press Contact: WILLIAM RICE
Company Name: WebAward
Email: Email Us Here: http://www.prweb.com/emailmember.php?prid=519024
Phone: 860-558-5423
Website: www.07webaward.org

Voicecasting®  - Voicemail spam, answering machine spam, voice message spam, recorded spam message
http://voicelogic.com/voicecasting.html

They put marketing sales messages into residential telephone voice mail boxes or answering machines. And they say they do this without ringing the phone...! Like getting email spam, but not hearing the message "You've got mail". WTF, where did THIS come from? Honey, I thought you checked the machine, it says there's a message...!

Talk about your stillborn ideas....!

Don't tell me that we are going to need a CAPCHA for our answering machines and voice mail? "If you're human, press F-O-U-R. If you want to leave a message, press the number that completes this famous line: '... god, indivisable, with liberty and justice for all'. If you want to leave a message in our blackhole spam bucket, press 2. To be connected to the FTC, press 3."

I just got a junk fax from these guys and went to their site before I reported the fax to www.efax.com.

As usual I am late to the rantfest:

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1679258
http://www.spamblogging.com/archives/000690.html
http://www.dmn.ca/Articles/Articles/2004/Nov/crtc1104.htm
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2004/dt2004-65.htm
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/PartVII/eng/2005/8622/r11_200514936.htm

Finances.com is for sale!

The domain has been registered since 1995.

Google finds 97,700,000 websites including the terms "finance/s".

15,254 searches have been performed on Overture (OVT) for the term "finances" in February 2007.
There have even been 88 OVT searches for the domain with extension ("finances.com")!

OVT w/ext results have been ranging from 60 to 327 between August 2005 and November 2006.

The current high offer is $350,000. The domain will be sold at this price if we do not get a $370,000+ offer before Thursday, April 12, 2007.

Contact broker Dominik Mueller at info@highendwebnames.com if you're interested.

Thank you and Happy Easter!

HighEndWebNames.com

You can subscribe to this newsletter on http://www.highendwebnames.com/domain-newsletter.html.

Yoda to Use Force to Optimize Web Sites

Minneapolis, MN -- April 4th, 2007 - In a communication today, ex-Jedi instructor Yoda announced his intention to provide search engine optimization services (SEO) to all races and on all planets that require SEO services. At press time we could not confirm the rumor that the company motto would be "Links, the Force. Use the Force!".

This is the communication we received today:

How your web, pages are displayed we checking.

To, help optimize how your web pages are. One moment please to help.

Page does not redirect you have scripts?

Web pages are, displayed. One moment please to help optimize how! Microsoft office program is installed.

Scripts disabled more on follow link, the?

See if, microsoft office program is installed, this page. See, if microsoft office, program is installed this page. Moment please to help optimize. Scripts disabled more, on follow link, the.

Does not redirect you have scripts disabled more on.

Moment, please, to, help.

If, microsoft office program is installed!

Web pages are displayed we checking.

Web pages are displayed we checking. Have scripts disabled more on follow.

Installed this page does not redirect, you have.

Office program is installed this page does. To help optimize how your? Installed this page does not redirect, you have scripts. Are displayed we checking, see if microsoft.

[Note: I found this SPAM more amusing than most and thought I would share it... (hris ]

Damn the PR, Full Submit Ahead!

I just read an article here that says what I have been saying for quite a while. The author talks about submitting to smaller directories even if their PR is zero or very low. The reason is that even if they are small now, there is a good chance that they will grow and get bigger in the future. This is less likely if everyone just ignores them.

If people were not always so short-sighted, they might realize that directory submissions is a two way street, and this goes for the directory owner as well as the person submitting a site.

A good, well-written submission may be small, but it can still be good content and have value. An average directory listing provides value as a way for visitors to that site to find it, AND also provides a link back to the site which may have some value.

Good Listing =  Good Content = Good Link

Those that are submitting sites and those that own directories and search engines should have the attitude that they both need each other and show proper respect. Just as poor quality submissions and ignoring posted submission rules show no respect, so to does excessively fussy rules, return link requirements, and most listing fees. It is not realistic to expect someone that is submitting their site to pay even $1 to do so at all the sites that they have to choose from. By not charging a fee, directory owners allow themselves to get much more good content for their site and attract those that click, which continues long after a site has been submitted.  (hris
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