Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008
by Josh
There are companies that hate spam and there are companies that really hate spam. Web security giant McAfee is taking their assault on the faceless one step further with their new project, The SPAM Experiment.
What is it? In each of the 10 countries in which they do business, McAfee has selected five volunteers to go spam-crazy, clicking and signing up for anything they can within 30 days. They'll be asked to keep records of what they sign up for (helped with a disposable email address) and some will even be given money to go a step further and actually purchase services. Using Dell computers (which they'll get to keep) with minimal anti-virus, McAfee will keep track of what happens in those 30 days and use the data to help further combat the pop-ups and junk email plague that affects millions of unassuming people every day.
While the program has its doubters and haters from within the online industry, keep this mind: this experiment isn't to save you. For everyone that is Twitter-savvy and has a blog, there's a 43-old office worker in Pontooka, Kentucky, that doesn't fully get the ramifications of clicking a glowing pop-up for a free Ipod Nano. Stupid people do make the world go 'round, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be saved.
To get some more info, check out the McAfee microsite.