I have been getting some Google Adwords phishing emails lately, and aside from some poor formatting, they look fairly legitimate. Google posted some security tips the other day, and they’re not half bad, but I wanted to share an example.

Here is an email I received recently: (warning - don’t click the link in there!)

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Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads will be suspended soon unless we can process your payment.
Please update your payment information.

Please sign in
to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login,
and update your billing information.

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Google AdWords Team

Overall the phisher did a pretty good job of making the email look legitimate. However, the formatting was a little off, and the request was a little too vague.

Plus, no matter how well camouflaged the link is, it’s not that hard to spot that the link goes to a subdomain of 4e1w1.cn, which is definitely not Adwords!

But the dead giveaway is that this email came to my “@internetmarketingsucks.com” address I have listed on this blog, which is NOT an actual Adwords account email. So obviously it’s not from Adwords because Adwords does not know about this email address…

There’s a very important lesson - don’t mingle your actual Adwords email with a public one. Then you won’t have to really worry about phishing, since your Adwords account updates will only come to your semi-private email address.

For example, you might use josh@myawesomelookingfunblog.com as a public email on your blog, but then you would use josh.doe.adwords@myawesomelookingfunblog.com for your Adwords account.

Anyway…

Be careful out there.

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I see a lot of companies (700+) are now taking part in the “1% for the planet” movement, where 1% of sales are donated to saving the environment, going green, etc.

So when I saw the “1 for charity blogger challenge” it immediately caught my attention. Chad from CDF Networks is challenging bloggers to join in and… Give up one of your ad spaces for charity!

It’s a small change that could really add up, so I jumped on board. The first step was to pick a charity, and I wanted something that could relate to this blog, so I went with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Here’s a quote from their website:

Big Brothers Big Sisters receives 75% of our funding from private donations. Support from individuals like you is vital to provide mentors for children in your community.

And we know they need them. It isn’t easy being a kid these days. In these complex and confusing times, children need a caring adult to be a mentor and a friend — someone they can talk to, have fun with, and learn from.

I think that fits with my blog nicely. Just think… It isn’t easy being an internet marketer these days. In these complex times, there are more gurus than ever before hawking even more worthless products! Everyone needs someone to check these ebooks out and make fun of them!

And here’s the badge I created:

If you want to join in, just place a charity’s banner or text link in one of your ad spots. It’s that simple.

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