1. How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro

As a follow up to their coverage of social gaming scams, Tech Crunch posted this great article on the other dark side of social games: collecting your personal data and using it to spam (and scam some more).

An excerpt:

People on Facebook won’t pay for anything. They don’t have credit cards, they don’t want credit cards, and they are not interested in shopping. But you can trick them into doing one of three things:

• Download a toolbar: It could be spyware (such as Zango) or something more legitimate, such as Webfetti or Zwinkys.
• Give up their email address: You’ve won a “free” camera or perhaps you’ve been selected as a tester for a new Macbook Pro (which you get to keep at the end of the test). Just tell us where you want us to ship it.
• Give up their phone number: You took the IQ Quiz, so give us your phone number and we’ll tell you your score. Never mind that you’ll get billed $20 a month or perhaps be tricked into inviting 10 other friends to beat your score.

It's worth a read to see what's at stake for consumers and the kinds of things that happen any time a new platform comes along without enough regulation.

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