AOL has released its third annual Top 10 Spam messages list. No surprises here that the most common spam messages for the year included counterfeit e-mails offering a chance to work for Donald Trump, new medical products for improving one's sex life or losing weight and so forth. Sexually-oriented spam and phony personalized messages also were present on the list.
Media reports state that a disturbing trend tracked by AOL in 2005 was an increasing sophistication on the part of spammers, who appeared to be using more targeted and devious schemes to try to convince users to open their messages. The company said six of the top 10 e-mail campaigns it battled over the last twelve months fell into the category of "special order spam," or e-mails that went beyond the messages of previous years in trying to mislead potential recipients.