Forget Email. Web Sites Use Notifications to Spam Your Browser Instead

[Solarquest]

If there is one thing that is universally disliked, it is spam. Thankfully, most large email services and providers do an admirable job filtering spam before it even gets to your inbox.

Unfortunately, a new method of sending you spam has been created that skips your email altogether and sends it directly to your browser. This new method is called web notification spam and I have started to see numerous sites being setup to utilize this new tactic.

What are web notifications?
Web notifications is a legitimate method that sites can use to send subscribers notifications when new content is available.

It works like this. A visitor goes to a site and they are presented with a notification at the top of the browser that asks them to allow the web site to send or show notifications. If a user clicks on the Allow button, the site can send them notifications of new content when it is published.
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Misleading sites trick visitors into subscribing
Recently, I have started to see sites promoted by adware that are pushing web notification subscriptions on visitors in a more intrusive or misleading manner.
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Removing notification subscriptions is easy
Thankfully, removing notification subscriptions is relatively easy.

For Chrome, you can go into the Settings and search for Notifications. click on Content Settings, and then click on Notifications. Chrome will display the list of sites you explicitly blocked and the list of sites you are subscribed to or have allowed notifications to be sent from.
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[DavidLMO]

Notifications are a pain and can track you all around and pop up when unexpected and or unwanted. I simply reject them except for a very select few sites.

 

[DavidLMO]

General guide to turn these off in various browsers:

How to Stop Websites From Asking to Show Notifications