The Isle of Man has been named in a hall of spam shame by top internet security firm McAfee.
Researchers have noticed a huge rise in unwanted junk email from the Island, and say it’s part of a trend by spammers to use small islands to get around email filters.
They say using a lesser-known top level domain such as our dot-IM makes it harder to distinguish spam from legitimate email.
McAfee says it has identified a number of islands as being favored by spammers.
These include Tokelau, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Tuvalu, American Samoa, the Isle of Man, Tonga, Sao Tome and Principe.
Guy Roberts, senior development manager, McAfee Anti-Spam Research & Development Team says some of these islands have dozens of spammed domains per square mile.
It could be bad news for Manx emails, as some security products which filter out spam email use domain name reputation.
If the Island becomes known for spam, it could lead to a crackdown from companies such as McAfee.
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