Debate surrounds claims against Yahoo
An executive from anti-spam and security organization The Spamhaus Project told a London audience that Yahoo is playing host to thousands of phishing sites and isn't doing enough to help prevent online fraud. Richard Cox, the group's chief information officer, made the comments Tuesday at the "eConfidence--Spam and Scams" conference, claiming the company has nearly 5,000 domains hosted and registered with domain names that are likely intended to confuse users into thinking they are legitimate financial sites.
For its part, Yahoo told ZDNet UK that it will look into the matter and focus more attention on its anti-phishing efforts. A Microsoft spokesperson also claimed his company doesn't do enough to thwart phishing attacks and praised Spamhaus for highlighting deficiencies among the major Interent companies. But Spamhaus itself is hotly contested by many because of its "blacklist" service, which makes public a list of operations it deems spammers. That practice, however, has often come under fire because of the level of trust ISPs have to put into the keeper of such a list.
The criticism of Yahoo comes just one week after Ben Edelman leveled charges at the company, claiming it funds spyware companies with its Search Marketing service. But the ongoing debates over spyware, spam and phishing seem only to highlight the fact that determining who is ultimately responsible for finding a solution to these dregs of the Web will take much longer than most users hope.
Blog community response:
"...Kudos indeed to Spamhaus. Supporting adware vendors and hosting thousands of phishing sites is a bit of a one-two punch to the Yahoo! name. In the Internet timeline, Yahoo is a dinosaur."
--Spyware Daily
"I spent today at a conference with the title 'eConfidence - Spam, Scams And Security'...There were 20 speakers and some of the main themes were as follows: About two-thirds of all e-mail is now spam. In the UK, it accounted for 12.4 billion items last year. Richard Cox, Chief Information Officer at Spamhaus, declared: 'We are at war.'"
--CommsWatch
"There was a brief moment in time...when Yahoo reacted (to information about spammers) quickly and decisively. I was really jazzed about it. But that was a fleeting moment. Kudos to Richard Cox. Perhaps the publicity from the conference will get Yahoo to do something. Anything."
--Spam Wars Dispatch
"I'd be curious to see the breakdown between 'bank' and the other keywords, since there are plenty of legitimate uses for domains with the word 'bank.' But this raises a valid question ?? should domain registrars get into the business of censoring which domains they allow clients to register?"
--Domain Name Wire
"...Many ISPs turn to third party services like SpamCop, SPEWS (Spam Prevention Early Warning System), and SpamHaus to help them identify sources of spam and block the messages before their email systems get clogged. No Trial - No Defense - Guilty! In theory, it's a great system. In practice, it creates a situation resembling a witch hunt where the accused gets burned at the stake without a trial, let alone the ability to face their accuser."
--End Spam Forever
