obu Web Tech has finished the development of a site for our client NextTouch Enterprises. NextTouch is a Customer Relationship Management solution offering a closed loop system of Customer Intelligence Marketing. The site relies on a fast-paced flash animated navigation structure with XHTML compliant page code throughout.

Due to explosive growth and key partnerships, we have relocated our headquarters to the Scottsdale Airpark.
8255 E. Raintree Drive, Suite 200
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
602.614.2930

Wired News: Netherlands Nabs Nigeria Scammers

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Dutch police have arrested 52 people suspected of defrauding gullible Internet users in one of the largest busts of the infamous “Nigerian e-mail” scam.

Also known as an “advance fee” or “419″ scheme, the scammers sent spam e-mails asking for help in transferring a large sum of money out of a politically or economically troubled country, in exchange for a generous percentage.

Robert Meulenbroek, spokesman for the Amsterdam prosecutor’s office, said the ring broken this week had reaped millions of euros. Recent victims included people from the United States, Japan, England, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland.

A task force of 80 officers raided 23 apartments, seizing computers, fake passports and 50,000 euros ($62,000) in cash. One suspect was injured attempting to escape by leaping from a third-floor apartment, he said.

The detainees were not identified under Dutch privacy rules, but most were believed to be Nigerian, police said.

In a variation on one of the world’s oldest scams, the Nigerian e-mail con artists present themselves as well-connected people who need access to a Western bank account to transfer a large sum of money that cannot be spent in their own country.

They promise a cut of the money in exchange for a smaller upfront cost before the larger sum can be transferred — but it never is.

The scam has existed for years in various forms, but in the 1990s it moved online, where it is cheaper to organize and harder to trace.

Arrests have been made in several countries in recent years, including Australia, Canada and the United States.

The Amsterdam scammers referred their potential victims to websites of fictitious companies with names like Global Securities and Financial Company Limited, or Fortune Trust Finance & Securities.

Often, they listed a fake address, though most had a working mobile phone number.

The suspects worked from their homes and sent more than 1 million e-mails, at times clogging the servers of their Internet provider, Dutch-based cable company UPC. Police enlisted UPC’s help to trace them, Meulenbroek said.

Six people, three from Nigeria and three from Benin, were convicted in a similar case in Amsterdam in May, receiving sentences of up to 4.5 years. They had defrauded victims for several million dollars, including a Swiss professor who lost $482,000 after being promised 25 percent of a $36 million sum.

Nigeria has recently stepped up its efforts to eradicate the scam, which taints its image abroad. The Central Bank of Nigeria denies any connection to the scammers, and Nigerian agencies have been placing warning advertisements in international newspapers for years.

The scam is sometimes called a “419″ fraud due to the Nigerian criminal code outlawing it.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month, Nigeria’s finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, reissued a statement promising to crack down on the scammers.

PageRank is Dead (Jeremy Zawodny’s blog)

I’d like to talk a moment to mourn the passing of PageRank, the secret sauce that made Google the spicy search engine we once knew and loved.

Some might argue that blogs killed PageRank. But the fact is, the online world goes through pretty impressive changes every few years. And, believe it or not, PageRank is old. In Internet time, PageRank may have been well into middle age.

Its death hasn’t been announced yet, but the time is near. The signs have been around for quite a while.

You see, PageRank was a brilliant yet simple idea at the time: use the structure of the web itself to determine what is and is not popular. But that’s behind us. Google is no longer concerned solely with what’s popular. Like most companies, they also care a lot about what sells or what advertisers want. Many speculate that Google is responding to various pressures to keep blogs from tainting their results. Perhaps.

With all the recent discussion of Google removing (or not removing) blogs from their index, people have been barking up the wrong tree. Google doesn’t have to remove them. The simply need to identify them in a reliable way. Then they can be penalized (given a lower PageRank). And, believe it or not, that’s not terribly difficult to do if you have a good web map and a few blogs to use as starting points.

It has already happened. And the results are less than ideal. A Google search for “jeremy” now [sometimes] yields something far different than what it used to. Notice that Google now believes that my home page is more important than my blog. That is, for lack of a better term, retarded.

(It seems that Google has only partially deployed this. If you play around long enough, you can get the old answer from one of their search clusters. That’s how I got both of those screenshots. So far it seems to be a 50/50 chance, at least from the West Coast.)

The fact that I’m no longer the first result isn’t the issue. I never expected that to last.

Let’s be honest. My home page sucks. Nobody links to it anymore. Sure, there are a lot of old links, but let’s look at what Google can tell us. There are roughly 600 links to my home page while there are over 1,800 links to my blog. There are three times as many links to my blog, and I’d argue they’re more significant. They’re newer. They’re often more than mere pointers because there’s commentary about me or what I write.

Anyway, draw your own conclusions.

Google has a really hard problem to solve. It’s not unlike the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. PageRank stopped working really well when people began to understand how PageRank worked. The act of Google trying to “understand” the web caused the web itself to change. Blogs are only a recent example of that. Oddly, unlike many of the previous problems with Google (see also: search engine optimization companies; link spammers; google bombing), blogs were not designed to outsmart Google. They just happen to use the web and hyperlinks the way we should have been using them all along. Now they’re being penalized for that, it seems.

It’ll be interesting to see how Inktomi and Microsoft handle this “problem” too.

Oh, I should note that this could all be a bug and I’m just using it as an excuse to ramble. But you all knew that, right? My readers are smart. All three of them. 🙂

obu Web Tech and AviMail Internet Solutions have signed a joint partnership agreement to develop advanced web solutions. obu Web Tech will oversee all Web Design and New Web Business Development in partnership with AviMail’s extensive online marketing business model.

About obu Web Technologies inc.: obu was formed by Joshua Strebel in 2003 as a progressive web design firm serving the greater Phoenix Metro Area. obu specializes in creating custom high-end websites for cliental wishing a robust and cutting-edge web presence. obu employs a small number of highly skilled professionals to execute the advanced design ideas of the company.

About AviMail: AviMail stands for Audio, Video, Interactive mail. This unique system produces, sends, tracks and manages email messages with custom creative, interactivity, sound, video and animation for increased exposure, greater campaign effectiveness and higher response rates. Founded in 2002, AviMail leverages the diverse talents of its professional staff to bring volumes of technical and marketing knowledge to the bear for thier clients.

We have been in development for the last month or so to bring our SEO services online. We now offer complete Search Engine Optimization and Website Promotion Services. We look forward to providing this addtional service alonog with our award-winning web design and developement services.

The audience for radio broadcasting over the Internet has grown substantially in a very brief period of time. The phenomenon is similar to the rise of FM radio in the 1970s, says the 12th Arbitron/Edison Media Research Study of consumer use of Internet broadcasting. Key findings include:

– The estimated number of Americans who have used Internet broadcasts in the past month was 51 million people as of January 2004. Twenty-one percent of Americans say they have watched Internet audio or video in the past month, and 44% of Americans say they have tried Internet broadcasting at least once.

– In four years, the monthly Internet audio and video audience has doubled from 10% to 21% of all Americans, representing 51 million consumers. In January 2000, 10% of all Americans had watched Internet video or listened to Internet radio/audio in the last month. As of January 2004, 21% of all Americans watch or listen to Internet broadcasting monthly. Forty-two percent of the Internet audio audience say they have listened to Internet radio while shopping or researching a product/service online.

– Four in 10 Americans have tried Internet radio. Thirty-nine percent of Americans have ever listened to online broadcasts of over-the-air radio stations or stations available only on the Internet.

– In August 1998, only 18% of the entire population were even aware of Internet radio. As of January 2004, 16% of Americans say they have listened to Internet radio in the last month and 8% have listened in the past week. The monthly Internet radio audience represents approximately 38 million Americans, and the weekly audience represents nearly 19 million Americans.

– According to Arbitron, the vast majority of Internet radio is consumed during the workday. Since 2000, the average weekly time spent listening to Internet radio has averaged between five and six hours a week.

– The monthly Internet radio audience is eight times greater than that of the two satellite radio broadcasters combined. Currently, 2% of all Americans say they subscribe to either Sirius or XM, the nation’s two satellite paid-subscription radio services.

– Fifty-two percent of monthly Internet broadcast consumers have purchased online in the last month versus only 28% for non monthly Internet broadcast consumers. Those who listen or watch Internet broadcasts also spend more money online. The monthly Internet broadcast audience spent an average of $720 in the last year compared to an average of $522 spent online among those who don’t watch or listen online.

– Forty-two percent of Internet audio listeners say they have listened to Internet radio while researching a product or service online, while more than one-quarter of Internet audio listeners (27%) listen to Internet radio while shopping and purchasing online.

– Monthly Internet broadcast consumers are more likely to be male (60%) while those Internet users who do not regularly stream are more likely to be female (56%). One-third of all online American men regularly consume Internet audio and video. The overall Internet broadcast segment is 26% of those online, but delivers a high concentration of persons in the 12- to 34-year-old demographic.

– Fifty-four percent of monthly Internet broadcast consumers have at least a college degree versus 42% for those who do not regularly consume streaming media. Fifty percent of monthly Internet broadcast consumers have an annual household income of $50K+ compared to 38% for the rest of Internet users. Seventeen percent of Internet broadcast consumers have an annual household income of $100K+ versus 9% for the remaining Internet audience.

Email Marketing Spending to Reach $6 Billion in 2008

JupiterResearch announced that spending on e-mail marketing in the U.S. will rise from $2.1 billion in 2003 to $6.1 billion in 2008. The report finds that the dramatic cost reductions of e-mail marketing, the growth of sponsored and acquisition e-mail campaigns and the ever-increasing challenges presented by spam, are the critical factors driving the market.

The report finds customer retention e-mail campaigns accounting for the greatest share of non-spam e-mail marketing spending, and will continue to do so over the near-term. Strong spending on retention is driven by the dramatic cost effectiveness of e-mail as compared to postal direct mail.

David Daniels, a research director at JupiterResearch, suggests that marketers must manage their campaigns with skill to obtain the full benefits of online direct marketing. “Smart marketers have to manage their lists, test mailings against control groups and adopt behavioral targeting to get the biggest payoff,” he said.

JupiterResearch forecasts that strong growth in spending for sponsored e-mail campaigns will continue as well, driven by rising CPM rates, increasing inventory, richer creative formats, and increased effectiveness resulting from more diligent targeting and testing. Acquisition e-mail marketing in the U.S. is also recovering, and will climb steadily from $720 million in 2003 to $1.8 billion in 2008.

According to the report, during 2003 the average U.S. online consumer received 3,920 unwanted commercial e-mail messages. This number will grow to reach an outrageous total of 6,395 by the end of 2008. However, contrary to popular belief, spam is not the greatest barrier to reaching consumers. Rather, it is the volume of messages sent by legitimate marketers.

Sponsored e-mail messages in the U.S. will grow at nearly twice the compound annual rate (19%) of total message volume (11%) between 2003 and 2008. In order to cut through the vast clutter of commercial messages, marketers should focus on timeliness and relevance over frequency in their e-mail messages to consumers, the report states.

Wired News: Spam-Busters Report Good News
DUBLIN — They’re the scourge of the electronic age — the modern-day equivalent of the 19th century snake-oil salesmen hawking their miracle cures, love potions and get-rich-quick schemes. Like the rain in Ireland, there seems no escape from the tide of spam, or junk e-mail flooding the Internet.

But operating from the backstreets of the Irish capital, a small team of spam-fighters says it’s winning the battle against unsolicited e-mail that costs big business billions of dollars a year.

During the European day, employees at spam-filtering company Brightmail are engaged in a war of attrition against the propagators of unwanted e-mail all over the world before passing the baton to colleagues in San Francisco.

Spam-filtering companies like Brightmail have their work cut out — figures show the amount of junk e-mail surpassed legitimate e-mail for the first time ever last year.

And, police say, organized crime gangs are using spam to defraud online banking customers and distribute computer viruses capable of taking over an unsuspecting computer user’s machine.

To this end, they were given a recent boost by news that four of the biggest U.S. e-mail providers had sued hundreds of online marketers under a new federal law that bans the worst kinds of spam e-mail. And, the legal clampdown will intensify in Europe in the coming months, industry officials say.

“A year ago people were scared that e-mail was going to stop being useful because the amount of spam was increasing so quickly but now it’s starting to come under control,” said Ken Schneider, Brightmail’s chief technology officer.

Brightmail filters 80 billion e-mails a month, blocks two billion spams a day and looks after 300 million e-mail boxes the world over.

Since setting up in 1998, it has filtered spam for some of the world’s most prominent service providers, ranging from telecoms giant AT&T, EarthLink and Microsoft’s MSN in the U.S. to BT Openworld and Demon Internet in Britain.

The Dublin office has been up and running for two years, with Brightmail taking advantage of the relatively low-cost base and highly-skilled workforce on offer in Ireland.

Part of the problem is deciding what does and doesn’t constitute spam, which Brightmail estimates makes up around 60 percent of all Internet e-mail.

“We all receive unsolicited messages on a daily basis from our boss asking us to do something,” said Schneider. “You might consider it unwanted e-mail but it’s not generally thought of as spam.”

The problem comes with unsolicited e-mail that is sent in bulk to random addresses with varying subject lines to disguise their true intent.

Brightmail has two million decoy e-mail accounts in existence that attract unsuspecting spam e-mail and forward it to Dublin for analysis.

Rules are then written about how to block particular types of spam and are sent out to Brightmail’s customers to halt spam attacks in their tracks.

“We prioritize our attacks and go after the biggest first,” said Schneider.

He estimated the number of spammers around the world to number under a thousand with many buying CDs containing millions of e-mail addresses they use to ply their trade.

“You find some people who deny it’s spam and tell you they bought the e-mail addresses and you have to explain to them that the recipients never agreed to receive it,” Schneider added.

by WebProNews | Staff Writer

“Today is a red-letter day for big-time spammers, and the letters they should remember from this day forward are ‘CAN-SPAM,’” said AOL Executive Vice President and General Counsel Randall Boe.

America Online, Earthlink, Microsoft and Yahoo! today jointly announced that their spam-prevention efforts have resulted in the filing of the first major industry lawsuits under 2003’s the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM). These are the first major industry lawsuits being filed under the new law.

CAN-SPAM, which went into effect on January 1st of this year, criminalizes specific tactics while providing new law enforcement tools to aid in preventing unwanted email.

“Congress gave [e-mail and Internet service providers] the necessary tools to pursue spammers with stiff penalties, and we in the industry didn’t waste a moment – moving with speed and resolve to take advantage of the new law,” Boe said. “Consumers should take note that the new law not only empowered us to help can the spam, but also to can the spammers as well — and we’ll do that, one spam kingpin at a time if necessary.”

Many infamous large-scale spammers are being targeted in the six lawsuits, which are being filed against hundreds of defendants. The complaints were spread across the United States and charge the defendants with sending a combined total of hundreds of millions of bulk e-mail messages.

Allegations include law violations such as deceptive solicitations, sending spam through open proxies (a common method used to disguise the sender’s point of origin), spoofing of “from” email addresses, absence of physical addresses in the email content, and the absence of an electronic unsubscribe option.

See what e-Business professionals are saying about CAN-SPAM on WebProWorld, your forum for e-Business news and information.