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NEWS FROM THE LAB - Monday, December 20, 2010
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Is Facebook spam extending its reach outside of the USA and UK? Posted by Sean @ 16:27 GMT

Here's some analysis of Facebook spam that we have been tracking today.

There are several spam runs which can be found with an "http:// omg" search:

http:// omg

A number of the spammers utilize bit.ly and have public timelines.

Here's the least successful of the three we tracked.

99% of the People From USA unable to Watch This Video more than 25 second !!

The subject line doesn't have much of a hook and there's no picture, so it's not surprising that chirag9999's collection of links has only yielded about 30,000 clicks.

http://bit.ly/u/chirag9999

Now this "suicide girl" sample is more enticing.

This Girl Killed Herself After Dad Posted THIS on her Wall

Metawealth's collection of links has yielded over 170,000 clicks so far.

http://bit.ly/u/metawealth

But this is today's winner. A one year old girl with twins in her belly?

OMG! One years old girl pregnant with twins in her belly!

Over 250,000 clicks and counting.

http://bit.ly/u/romailtariq

It is important to remember that not everybody that clicks on these links will have added the spammer's application. But we did see several thousand active monthly users when we checked a few of them, so the conversion rate is quite a bit higher than e-mail spam.

Interestingly, these three spam runs do not appear to be very popular in the United Kingdom.

Only the least successful "Daily News" spam accumulated clicks from the UK.

bit.ly/i77FFI

The "suicide girl" spam appears to be popular Malaysia and Singapore, as well as the USA.

bit.ly/f8xDs8

And for some reason, Sweden seems to be interested in many of the "pregnant one year old" links.

bit.ly/f6iYbR

This is the first time that we've noticed people from such countries clicking on Facebook spam in such numbers. Typically we've seen such tabloid style spam pulling in folks from the USA/UK, or vice versa.

All of the spam applications have been reported to Facebook and will hopefully be disabled soon.