Apple's foray into the world of social networking with Ping has just begun. Unveiled along with other Apple products at the semi annual Fanboy fest, Ping is a service for users of i-Tunes which lets a particular user connect with the 160 million users of i-Tunes and see what music they are listening to and the most recommended tracks.
Ping was to be one of the applications available on the social networking site Facebook,so that fans could follow each other and connect through it.
Originally, Ping was Lala.com - a new music based social website with fresh applications. Apple acquired it in December last year. Publicity materials boasting about the newly introduced Ping and its easy access via Facebook were also sent out, but due to a standoff between Apple's CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerber, Ping was shown the door without getting hitched with Facebook.
As it turns out, Ping isn't such a great success when it comes to security and is being seen as a haven for spam. Within 24 hours of its launch Ping was drenched in spam related complaints from users. Sophos security blogger Chester Wisniewski points out the reason for this being "The service implements no spam or URL filtering. It is no big shock that less than 24 hours after launch, Ping is drowning in scams and spams."
Strangely, Apple is filtering for other offensive content like nudity in profile pictures, but has completely bypassed spam. Users are getting URL based comment spam which is unheard of, for an Apple product.
