Security → Google+ Delivers Spam Messages

quote:

---

It's the hottest invitation in technology right now -- an e-mail telling you how to "learn more about Google+." If you get one, though, be careful about clicking on it. It may be spam.

Security vendor Sophos says that pharmaceutical spammers have recently started to cash in on the popularity of Google's Facebook alternative by pushing out fake invitations to the Google+ social service.

"The messages look similar to the real emails that users may receive from friends who are already members of Google+," wrote Sophos Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley in a Friday Blog Post "However, clicking on the links will not take you to the new social network, but instead take you to a pharmacy website set up to sell the likes of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra."

---

quote:

---

It's the hottest invitation in technology right now -- an e-mail telling you how to "learn more about Google+." If you get one, though, be careful about clicking on it. It may be spam.

Security vendor Sophos says that pharmaceutical spammers have recently started to cash in on the popularity of Google's Facebook alternative by pushing out fake invitations to the Google+ social service.

---

quote:

---

Some early adopters of Google+ have found themselves bombarded with multiple notification messages in their email, due to a bug in the social networking's code after the site - astonishingly - ran out of disk space.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice-President of Social for Google, posted an apology (appropriately enough) on his Google+ account to those users affected, painting the social network as having been a victim of its own success.

---

quote:

---

Open...and Shut The geek alit are abuzz with the NEXT! NEW! THING! It's called Google Plus (Google+), and my inbox is peppered with notifications that I've been added to so-and-so's Circle. Unfortunately, I'm already connected with many of these people on Facebook. More unfortunately, I've never heard of some of the people that have been adding me.

Most unfortunately, it's not clear that a critical mass of people outside the tech world is going to bother setting up their social networks outside of Facebook. Why would they?

This isn't an argument that Google+ is functionally weak, or ill-conceived. It's neither. Google, despite some early problems with Buzz and other efforts, seems to have delivered an excellent product.

---

quote:

---

Google didn't build its new Plus service simply to have an online hangout like Facebook.

Rather, Google's new social-networking endeavour is about trying to gain valuable insights into people's lives and relationships. This could help the company do a better job of targeting ads so that advertisers would pay more and have less reason to spend their money on Facebook.

If it succeeds, Plus represents Google's best shot yet at muscling into a market that has threatened to topple the Internet search and advertising leader, as Facebook leads the way in making the online world social.

Plus is Google's carefully scripted venture into a territory where its previous efforts have been duds.

On the surface, Plus is reminiscent of Facebook -- with a Google touch. It lets people share photos and status messages, chat with friends and acquaintances and follow news updates. A prominent feature called circles allows users to organize the people they interact with into groups, such as family, close friends or fishing buddies. Users can choose to share things only among certain circles.

Google Plus is still in a restricted, test phase, and invites to join are highly coveted. Only time will tell if it takes off among the broader public or if it's too little, too late to face off with Facebook and Twitter on the social front -- just as Microsoft has failed to surpass Google in search with latecomer Bing.

---