Is India the spam capital of the internet?

Posted in Internet by Stuart on March 16th, 2009

Owning several social websites we have to deal with spam on a daily basis nearly all of which originates from the Asia Pacific Network specifically India, this begs the question what does India actually offer the Internet aside from spam, inexpensive outsourcing and Shilpa Shetty?

First off this post is not an attack on all of India which would be unfair as i am sure there are many legitimate internet users and business’s in the country, statistics i was looking over today at WPscoop however shows around 90% of all spam submitted to the site originates from Indian IP’s. 90% is a huge percentage to originate from a single country and more interesting a single provider’s network TATA Communications, since WPscoop launched in August 2008 we have had thousands of spam submissions and looked back over our spam system stats to build a profile of origin.

Very little Spam at WPscoop actually makes it onto the website due to our fantastic detection system that learns as it goes, this however still does not deter a spammer from spending 30 minutes of there life submitting links manually to the site and typing ReCAPTCHA’s. That’s a lot of wasted time in life trying to get a quick backlink to a site that avidly monitors spam manually and automatically. Whats more amusing to me are the rouge SEO companies we get each day that try to submit the same spam multiple times under different names even after they have been alerted instantly that there submission has been detected as spam and will not be published.

After i looked at the stats on WPscoop i dropped a mail out to some friends who also own some social news type sites asking what the top Spam IP’s were on their own projects and lo and behold India was at the top of their list’s also. The main ranges that were the biggest offenders were IP’s starting with 58, 59, 121 and 122 with 121 and 122 being the most prolific used for spamming.

Thus my conclusion that in 2008/09 India is the Spam capital of the Internet unfortunatley.

More Info on the Asia Pacific Network: http://www.apnic.net/index.html you can also check IP’s from the site and learn about their abuse procedures.

This is an interesting article which is more directed towards email spam and lists the top spam countries by amout of spam they produce. http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Internet/Dubious-Achievement.html

Where does you spam originate from?

Author: Stuart | Website: http://stuartduff.com

Stuart is web designer and developer from Glasgow, Scotland with a passion for wordpress. Stuarts interests are tech, design, php and anything web development, open source or Internet related.

Heather Burns

Just came to this post because today alone I have had nine spam messages all from web outsourcers in India. These people, frankly, are the bane of my existence. I cannot go through a single business day without receiving email after email - and sometimes phonecalls as well - from cheap, low-quality Indian web companies asking me to outsource their work to them. This is quite separate and different from general spam comments on any given topic on a blog. I clearly state on my site's contact form that I do not outsource web work overseas. They fill out the form anyway. Why would I outsource my laundry much less my clients' work to people who have no intention of following basic directions? As for the last call I received, it went like this: "Who am I speaking with?" (I gave my name.) "Who am I speaking with?" "I just told you." "Can I speak with the business person?" (*I'm a woman, therefore I must be the receptionist!) "You are speaking with the business person." "I see from your web site you do x, y, and z." "No I do not. My web site does not say that anywhere." Please note this is not an attack on India per se. I would have this problem if they were Peruvian, Portuguese, or Philadelphian. But the site analytics tell the story: up to fifty (!) unwanted contacts per week from one country. I don't have this problem from anywhere else.

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Stuart

Hi Heather, Each day I face the same challenge and as you described have now progressed from simply receiving contact form spam to phone calls offering SEO / Development services from India on a daily basis. When in business I definitley like to listen to outside proposals that may strengthen my companies services, unfotunatley though these phone calls are becoming more frequent and simply annoying. I am also not going to do business with anyone who lies to me in the opening sentence of their conversation, what I mean by that is certain Indians usuing western names to try and build initial confidence. Last week I had a Bill, Ritchie and Alan call me and I could bet my reputation none of these are their real names. Aside from the time lost dealing with these enquiries the false names really get under my skin a great deal, like you this is not an attack on India if I was getting these enquiries from other continents I would be just as peeved.

Patricia

My site is plagued with Indian spam. they sign up, go through captcha, then activate their accounts through the email. Post then wait and return a week later to actually insert the spam. All so I can then delete it a few minutes later. WTF!

Hi R.Bhaveshh, Nice to see you commented here :) I agree with you on the fact that a lot of companies outsource their link building strategy's and India will indeed be one of those locations along with many other locations around the world. On world statistics Russia would most likely come out top for Spam i would think, on my site last year however India was the leader. Rouge submissions have gradually declined over that past few months which is nice as proves or detection systems are working efficiently to deal with spammers. Aside from the usual Viagra and other medical products we actually had a lot of submissions offering Top Class SEO Services yeah right lol. I like many dislike all spammers of any origin but it's part and parcel of the Internet and life in general.

R.Bhavesh

nice read and good observation. I would like to draw your attention to this point though. What the SPAM is about? Isn't it something like the SPAM is outsourced as well to the India? Just my thoughts.