AIM, Coho, AI, bots, oh my!
Not for the first time, I was greeted today with what appeared to be IM spam:
molecularcoho: Hey, Jimmy.
agerstein: wrong
MolecularCoho: Who is this Jimmy?
agerstein: thanks to an AIMBot, we’ve been forced into a chat with each other. i’m actually reading about what causes it right now, so i hope to be able to send you a link on how to get out of it, since i’m guessing you didn’t know about this anyway
MolecularCoho: Right, I’m going to go away.
agerstein:if you’re still there… you can put $optout on a blank line in this chat, and it should stop you from getting this crap in the future
agerstein: $optout
MolecularCoho: OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account “agerstein”. There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
MolecularCoho: If you are sure, type “$optout 59D3″. Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!
agerstein: $optout 59D3
MolecularCoho: OPERATOR: You have opted out. The accout “agerstein” will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!
Feel free to email projectupstream@gmail.com with feedback, comments, complaints, etc.
It would seem that Project Upstream is some kind of social networking experiment. I wouldn’t mind so much if I had opted into the program, but the way that they just start using you in their little experiment without so much as a warning is disturbing, to say the least. Their website doesn’t have any documentation, and if it wasn’t for the google search I did (aim facebook coho) I never would have found out about the ability to unsubscribe from their “service.”
Hopefully they’ll get a clue about their invasiveness – I’ll be sending them an email to let them know just what I think.
