Spammers spoil Twitter's Promoted Tweets UK debut

Spammers are threatening to spoil the first Promoted Tweets of micro-blogging site Twitter in the United Kingdom. Computer security firm Sophos said many search results for #gleeonsky, Sky TV's promotion for the hit TV series "Glee," were for "hot pictures" of actresses. "These aren't mischievous Twitter users, these are spam accounts set up specifically for the purposes of blurting out a message using a popular hashtag. In this case, #gleeonsky," Sophos said in a blog post. Worse, Sophos said the spammers will not care that their accounts get reported and shut down by Twitter security as they can just create a new one. "The danger is that unsuspecting users curious about a hot trend like the promoted #gleeonsky might click on one of the dodgy links above," it added. "Exploiting trending Twitter hashtags is nothing new. But as the company's business model relies more and more heavily upon convincing companies to pay big money to promote their brands in this way, there will be more pressure on Twitter to police abuse on their site and clean-up offending tweets," it added. Earlier, Twitter UK said Sky is using its promoted products to advertise that the TV show "Glee" returns to British TV screens. To increase awareness, Sky is using the twitter account @gleeonsky and paying for the hashtag #gleeonsky to be promoted to British Twitter users. "UK brands can now geo-target all of our Promoted Products, making it easier to reach local users with more geographically relevant content," Twitter UK had said. Twitter also said it is looking forward to working with "launch partners" this autumn, including Electronic Arts, Eurostar and Paramount Pictures UK. On the other hand, Sophos warned other spammers may choose to redirect victims to any webpage they like once they have clicked on the link. It said these could be a phishing site designed to steal Twitter credentials; a fake pharmacy; a porn site; or a website containing malware. — TJD, GMA News