« Recommended Reading - Volume 2
Boost Your Online Income with CashCrate »

Do Yahoo Bots Find You Sexy?

08 Jan 2008

8 Jan, 2008  tips

For the past several weeks, I’ve been plagued with spam on Yahoo! Messenger. At random intervals, I receive messages containing a blowfish graphic accompanied by a man’s voice - “Hey sexy!” This has gotten to be quite annoying, as I leave my messenger running in invisible mode nearly all the time. Thousands of other users are experiencing the same problem.

These instant messages are sent by bots, and if you respond to them, you put yourself at risk for malicious viruses and spyware. There are two ways to deal with the problem.

First, you can report the messages as spam. Yahoo makes it simple by displaying a link at the top of the instant message. Just click to report as spam, and the user will be added to your Ignore List. The only problem is that you’ll continue to receive the same messages from other user names.

If you’re looking for a more permanent solution, go to your Messenger menu and select “Messenger - Preferences - Ignore List.” Choose the option to “ignore anyone who is not on your Messenger list.” You’ll never again be bothered by the bots.

TrackBack URI | RSS feed for comments on this post

4 Responses

  1. Andrew

    2008 Jan 08 1

    Y’know, I’ve been getting that exact thing a lot lately too. And here I thought everyone was just being nice and telling me how sexy I look. Sigh. Way to knock down a guy’s ego, Tish…

    And yeah there is an easy “report as spam” link which I’ve used, but if these are bots, you know that there are literally thousands of user accounts, so clicking that link is good, but not a great solution. I like your second option to ignore anyone not on your list. I’m off to set that right now. Thanks!

  2. Barry

    2008 Jan 08 2

    The only problem with restricting IM’s to only people on your Messenger list, is if you give out your IM name like on your blog or other publicly accessible site. I enjoy getting pages from new people who’ve read my site, so restricting it to only Messenger lists would prevent anyone new from contacting you via IM.

    I don’t get very much IM spam at all, so it’s not too much trouble just to close it or Ignore it. In fact, I get more spam in bogus friend invitations to MySpace by these poor, sad, women and their porn sites than I ever had in Yahoo Messenger.

    But, that all said, the bots were right what they said about you Blogging Gal! Too bad those bots can’t appreciate it. ;)
    Barry’s last blog post..Rex and the Beast Podcast

  3. Mark

    2008 Jan 09 3

    Hmm, are you sure it wasn’t Garry getting back at you for calling him “cutie”? LOL

    Mark’s last blog post..Drummin’ Up Some Link Love #27

  4. Blogging Gal

    2008 Jan 21 4

    Andrew - Awww. Well, I still think you’re sexy. ;) Glad I could give you a good tip on the bots!

    Barry - That’s great that you don’t get much IM spam. I hope it stays that way. I know what you mean about restricting IMs. If you give out your Yahoo ID freely, it may not be the best solution. And btw, thanks for the compliment! ;)

    Mark - Haha! That made me laugh out loud!


Leave a reply


This blog uses the CommentLuv plugin which will try and parse your sites feed and display a link to your last post, please be patient while it tries to find it for you.