Wednesday 26 December 2007

Stop the Yahoo Messenger Spam!



If you too use Yahoo! Messenger like me, you've probably received an awful lot of IM spam from random people on yahoo messenger. Turns out, I'm not the only one. A lot of other people are having the same problem. Why is the Yahoo network so prone to random messages from spammers? Probably because the spammer doesn't have to be on your contact list in order to spam you, any random person can send you a message without your approval. And although this feature might be a pain in the neck, it's not hard to use it to your advantage. Here's how.

The solution to the problem is simply allowing only the people you know to reach you. Sadly, its a feature that only Yahoo Messenger (for now anyway) has because the Yahoo network (well AIM and other networks also have this feature, but Yahoo's the only one that seems to suffering the fury of the spammers right now) allows anyone to communicate with everyone on the network. So once a spammer has your Yahoo address, this is pretty much your only option.

How to ignore people you don't know in Yahoo Messenger

  1. Click on Messenger after you open Yahoo Messenger
  2. Click on Preferences
  3. Click on Ignore List in the left column (this is the Privacy tab if you're using Yahoo Messenger on a Mac)
  4. Then select the option 'Ignore Anyone who is not on my messaging list'
  5. Click OK
The only downside here is that you have to add people to your contact list, and approve them before you can chat with them. But that's a small price to pay for being spam free.




Got a question, tip or comment? Send them to beyondteck+question@gmail.com and we'll try to answer it in a blog post!

8 comments:

  1. I Did that and still get occasional "request to add" popups from Spam-bots (names are random with incremental digits on end). And this is behind our company's firewall at work - so extra annoying and concerning. Other ideas ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I get at least a dozen of these add requests a day and am about ready to delete yahoo messenger

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have given up. I get too many of these a day. I've switched to Google Chat. When I tell it, "only people on my contact list" it actually works.

    ReplyDelete
  4. this doesn't work.
    it should, but its broke.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Doesn't work, May be old info. I didn't even think I had Messenger, but I get pop-ups on my e-mail every time I log in. I've been Google mail from their start and only kept this account for those random "have to enter and email" things.

    ReplyDelete
  6. how do i check my enterprise outlook email from home?
    hotmailmail

    ReplyDelete
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