REPORT: Facebook Spammers Raking In $200M/Year

Despite continuous efforts by Facebook to curb spam, it still represents a lucrative opportunity, as Italian security researchers Andrea Stroppa and Carlo De Micheli told The Guardian spammers who post links to Facebook pages, which direct users to third-party scam sites, are earning about $200 million per year for their troubles.

Despite continuous efforts by Facebook to curb spam, it still represents a lucrative opportunity, as Italian security researchers Andrea Stroppa and Carlo De Micheli told The Guardian spammers who post links to Facebook pages, which direct users to third-party scam sites, are earning about $200 million per year for their troubles.

The researchers told the newspaper that spammers often use link-shortening services such as TinyURL and bit.ly to disguise the destinations they are trying to lure Facebook users to, but those link-shortening services also allow researchers to determine how many users have clicked those links.

Stroppa

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