The Coming Social Graph Backlash

We’ve all been partying like it’s 1999 on the social web scene. Along the way we’ve associated ourselves with some people who we don’t know and now that we’ve got more information than ever about ourselves online opportunists are beginning to take advantage of the situation. I’ve been using LinkedIn for close to a decade now and I’ve started to notice an increase in the amount of spam that I’ve been getting. It hasn’t been the kind that we’re used to - none of the usual trash that infiltrates our email inboxes. The new wave of spam is coming from companies like Amway (whatever they call themselves these days), cutco and others. They are turning from door to door marketing and phone telemarketing to social networks.  A recent Linkedin message exchange that got me thinking along these lines is below.  While I haven’t experienced this on Facebook yet, that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen. Eventually the folks at Facebook will relax the message filters to accommodate advertisers and marketers. Twitter has seen such an increase in spam that they saw the need to launch @spam so that violators could report it.

The first reaction, from people who are savvy users of the web, will be trimming the social hedge. They will start to cut loose, block and report lurkers and spammers who they don’t know. More and more of these users will demand their privacy back and over time they will get some of it back. The real question that all of this raises is whether or not the backlash will lead to closed social networks where marketers and strangers are not allowed at all.
So here is the exchange from LinkedIn that I alluded to earlier.  The guy lists his title as CEO (like others in his line of work). Food service previously…I guess on LinkedIn a door to door sales rep is a CEO.

Spammer: “Ok got it, does this mean “NO”?”

Me: “Please do not contact me again.”

Spammer: “I’m glad it depends, we’re not selling drugs or pushing anybody into anything. What I will not do is try to sell you anything. The business team I work with has done 6.8 billion since 1999, larger than Yahoo.com based on 2007 sales, and the 16th largest company in the world that is privately owned. That’s basically my summary, because other than that, I cannot explain a 6.8 billion dollar business over an email or message or phone. If you are interested, visit my website, and perhaps later on we can schedule a time to teleconference. What I would need to do is teleconference with you for about 40 minutes or so and ask you some questions. Based on your answers I’ll know whether or not there’s a fit there between us and whether or not I would make a recommendation to my partners and if we should go any further. If I think there’s a match there, I’ll explain to you how we work and if it makes sense to you, we can go to the next step but if you don’t think it fits for you would you be comfortable telling me that it’s not a fit for you and that we don’t need to go any further - can you tell me “NO”?”

Me: “That depends. I suggest you send me a summary before you try to sell me on something.”

Spammer: “At the bottom of your page in the contact settings box you have check that you are interested in career opportunities. I’m sure you’re not looking for another job but with the stock and economy recession starting to happen, most everybody is wondering what is going to happen to their income and/or amount of time put into their job. This may be a complete shot in the dark but let me ask you, do you ever look for other ways to create income in addition to your full time income? Or let me put it this way, are you open to diversifying your income?”

That was it.  The header for the message was “Career Opportunity”.  As a recruiter/blogger I’m always interested to see how others approach things.  I’m not impressed with this guy’s approach.  From what I can tell, the initial company behind him is here.  Dig into their website Amway actually turns out to in the driver’s seat.  Who would have thought that door to door was going to turn into to spam marketing via social networks.  I’m worried.

Update: Within days of this post two more spam messages.  This time it was someone offering me a stock market newsletter free 56 day trial.  Both of the users spamming me used Linkedin groups to spam me.  There is a flag in groups allowing users to allow other members of the group to contact them.  If you check this box then anyone in the group can contact you like they could if you were directly connected to them.  Turn this feature off and they can’t.

LinkedIn really needs to add a spam flag all inbox messages.

Update:
I’m receiving notes from people telling me that LinkedIn has started allowing advertisers to send targeted emails to users.  Of course larger advertisers are already abusing this and sending spam.