YouTube used to host spammers' adverts

Researchers at security firm Kaspersky Lab have claimed that YouTube is being used to host spammers' adverts.

The spammers send out thousands of emails containing a link to YouTube. When the link is clicked, it directs the recipient to an advertising video hosted on YouTube.

Kaspersky Lab said that it had long been aware of the potential for YouTube to be used by spammers but that this was the first time it had seen it being exploited.

"Naturally, this type of advertising is more interesting and gets more hits," says Darya Gudkova, head of Content Analysis & Research at Kaspersky Lab.

"Two years ago spammers used the YouTube name and the promise of interesting videos to lure users to advertising sites. Now the links really do lead to this popular video-hosting site which is being used to store unsolicited advertising content," Gudkova continued.

The company recommended that all surfers should use a spam filter to protect themselves from unsolicited advertising campaigns such as this.

A YouTube spokesman told Web User: "Sadly as with any form of communication, there is a tiny minority of people who try to break the rules.

"On YouTube, these rules prohibit content like pornography, gratuitous violence or videos with misleading descriptions. When people see content that they think is inappropriate they can flag it and our staff then review it. If the content breaks our terms then we remove it and if a user repeatedly breaks the rules we disable their account," he continued.