The inevitable fleas-on-the-dog effect: as social tools come to the fore, and millions are using them, we can anticipate the deluge of Social Spam.
"Waiting for the Other Shoe
Companies that rely on e-mail to keep in touch with customers may be compelled to take a good long look in the mirror, as this major onslaught against spam takes shape.
"Now that the 'CRM revolution' has given us all these new direct-marketing technologies, we have gone to the opposite extreme and think nothing of sending out a couple million e-mails at a time," Aberdeen Group vice president Denis Pombriant told NewsFactor.
It is more important than ever for companies to develop protective e-mail methodologies and policies, Pombriant says -- especially as marketing and contact technologies reach greater levels of sophistication.
"I've often said social networking has potential to be a power tool for spam. If you think spam is bad now, imagine the plight of a person who has a lot of contacts and a big network whose contact information gets in the hands of a spammer.""
Obviously, the efforts that the social tools providers are taking with regard to security and privacy need to be maintained, and probably extended. There is some concern about the potential for identity spoofing (see
recent post) which is a likely backdoor apporach for such scenarios.
I can almost imagine a Philip K Dick-esque sci fi thriller that hinges on a malefactor's identity theft of some highly connected and influential person, and the possible global disruption that ensue from this uber-networker's persona leaking out a rumor of, for example, impending monetary disaster in some southeast Asian nation.
Social networking terrorism? Once our social networks become encoded and channeled through software communication channels, they can be subverted.
The vendors will have to do more to ensure that the appropriate precautions -- in security, privacy, and ethical controls -- are in place before there is a horror story. And even one penetration -- one network stolen and used for social spim -- would echo in the media for years.
