Something ALL IM Networks Should Have
I was talking with a friend today over Yahoo! IM. I don’t normally sign in to YIM, and haven’t for several weeks. This is due to the fact that every time I sign in, I get bombarded with spam IMs. Most of these have been sent while I was offline, creating a serious mess whenever I decide to grace the few friends I talk to on YIM with my online presence.
Something that was suggested was a method to only accept messages from people already on your contacts, similar to e-mail whitelisting. It appears that AIM offers something of this type, but only in their ‘Pro’ version.
Why can’t we, by default, set ourselves up to automatically stop IM spam at the source. If someone is not on your contact list, and you have this turned on, they will not be able to contact you. It should be that simple. It should not be a premium or ‘Pro’ feature. It should simply be a flag you check in your account settings that says “Block IMs from anyone not on my contact list”.
Now, if I’m way off base on this, and I’m simply looking in the wrong place, PLEASE leave a comment and let me know where I can set this in either (or both) YIM or AIM. I’ll send you a virtual cookie in appreciation.