Internet Law News

Internet Crime The Latest Numbers

When it comes to crime, the Internet is like a Swiss Army knife—a multi-purpose tool that’s easy to use and highly versatile. That’s made crystal clear by the 2006 annual report just issued by our Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which shows how criminals used the ‘Net to launch nine different varieties of fraud alone.

Among the highlights from the report, which is now posted on the web:

Overall totals: During 2006, consumers filed 207,492 complaints. Complainants said they lost $198.4 million, the highest total ever.

Types of fraud: Nearly 45 percent of the complaints involved online auction fraud—such as getting a different product than you expected—making it the largest category; more than 19 percent concerned undelivered merchandise or payments. Another pervasive scheme last year involved an e-mail threat of murder . Get more details on all nine fraud categories in Appendix I of the report, including identity theft, investment fraud, cyberstalking, phishing, spoofing, spamming, and others. Read more at fbi.gov.

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	Did You Know?
	Spam is unsolicited "junk" email Spam is unsolicited "junk" email sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. The reason spam is so prominent on the Internet is the fact that spam costs the sender so little to send; in fact, most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or their Internet Service Provider (ISP).