User:Dorothy Nightingale/sandbox

Internet spam, is an internet culture that has been around since the start of the Internet and has gotten more notorious as of the 2010s.

Spam has existed back in the 2000s, but has gotten more common in the 2010s with the advent of more and more people, especially children, getting on the Internet.

Types of Spam

 * Fake scams: A common form of spam is fake scams where the ads claim that the users can win prizes such as iPhones.
 * Fake malware pop-ups: Some ads would even state things like your iPhone is infected, which isn't possible on a mobile operating system.
 * Unsolicited emails: A form of email spam that involves advertising scams/frauds. Often times, these are reported on the news and are sent via botnets. It should be noted that these are easily blocked as Google also verifies websites to determine if they are legitimate or not.
 * Robocalls: A type of call that often times warns the user, usually starting off with patterns like "This is an urgent message" or "we've been trying to reach you to x". They are performed via roulette phone callers, which selects random numbers and then call them. Often times, phone number spoofing, or Filter avoidance for phone numbers is how they remain undetected.

How to Protect Yourself

 * When it comes to stopping robocalls, don't often answer calls from phone numbers you don't know or are from area codes other than 800 (the area code used for corporations/companies), as they could be scams.
 * It is recommended to get an adblocker, such as Adguard which also blocks things like adblock haggling/cry messages that tell you to turn off your adblocker. Some sites have a message/banner telling you to turn off an adblocker. For example, DeviantArt, sometime in 2016 had an adblock banner saying "We know you're not here for the ads", but got removed several months later.