Lycos confirms anti-spam tool axe

Lycos has confirmed that it has scrapped its anti-spam screensaver, which launched last week as a way for people to fight back against junk email.

The software, "Make Love, Not Spam" was designed to sit on an individual's PC and, when the machine was not being used, generate traffic on the sites of known spammers.

But within days of launch, the service came under increasing criticism with experts questioning the legality of attacking spammers' websites in this way.

Security company Sophos advised computer users not to use the screensaver. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said: "Not only is this screensaver similar in its approach to a potentially illegal distributed denial of service attack, but it also is in danger of turning innocent computer users into vigilantes, who may not be prepared for whatever retaliation the spammers care to dream up."

Lycos has dismissed claims that the service launched distributed denial of service attacks but has decided to close the site.

In a statement today, Lycos said: “The aim of the campaign was to ignite a debate about anti-spam measures. We feel that we have achieved this through our activity and will now continue that debate with others in the email industry. We hope that this will lead to further new and innovative solutions to the problem of spam."

"Contrary to some reports, the service never launched a "distributed denial of service attack". Rather a centralised database ensured all known spammers' sites were left with at least five per cent of bandwidth. The idea was simply to slow spammers' sites and this was achieved by the campaign."

Lycos has also denied reports that the website was hacked last week. It claims a hoax screengrab was circulated. It has also assured users of Make Love, Not Spam that they are not at risk of attack by any spammers and that their IP address could not be logged by any third parties as a result of visiting makelovenotspam.com or downloading the screensaver.