Spam is getting really, really good.
My Gmail account has recently been receiving spam titled, “CNN Alert” with a headline attached. The headlines seem to be genuine. I only get one per day.
It meets the definition of spam (commercial, unsolicited, bulk) but I’m not sure exactly *what* it is. Either someone typo’d their email address and their daily notifications are being sent to me, or a spammer is filching daily headlines and pretending to be CNN.
I’d like to think it’s a typo, but it’s probably a spammer. This is top quality spam; the only way I can know for certain is to open one of the e-mails. We all know I’m not going to do that, but it’s still tempting. It’s particularly tempting because if these emails are CNN alerts, I’ll be able to opt-out of them, and get them to stop.
To recap:
- One per day… adds legitimacy. Brilliant!
- Real headlines… easy to steal, impossible to flag as spam. Brilliant!
- Posing as a service you could opt out of if you opened the e-mail… Brilliant!
- Posing as a service with real value (daily news) … Brilliant!
Sure it’s spam, but it’s well-done spam, and they’ve drained the fat. Now, does anyone have any wheat bread? Perhaps a couple of eggs?