Apple Adds 'Junk' Option To iCloud Calendar: Spam Rats Exterminated

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Apple has kindly responded, in part, to the Calendar spam nightmare. They've now provided a couple ways to 'Junk' the spam directly inside the iCloud Calendar rather than forcing victims to 'Accept', 'Decline' or 'Maybe' the spam, none of which were acceptable options.

Apple activates iCloud.com Calendar spam reporting feature
By AppleInsider Staff 
Sunday, December 11, 2016, 09:31 pm PT (12:31 am ET)

Apple on Sunday instituted a new junk content reporting feature on its iCloud.com web portal, the first step in what appears to be an activation of countermeasures against iCloud Calendar spam invites users began to receive in volume last month.

There are two ways to attack invitation spam in the iCloud Calendar.

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In the screenshot above, we notice the invitation spam via both a Calendar entry, marked as A, and the Notifications counter at the bottom of the window, marked as B. AppleInsider, in the article linked above, has described how to use the Notifications counter to 'Junk' the invitation spam. I'm going to describe how to perform the same function using the invitation spam Calendar entry.

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In the screenshot above, I've double-clicked the invitation spam entry in my Calendar. The result is a detailed information sub-window. I prefer this approach for removing invitation spam specifically because of the details provided. The text in the sub-window is a bit scrambled, but we can make out some typical signs of spam. The sender is Chinese. The invitation spam was sent to victims on an alphabetical spam-it list. The invitation spam directs the victim to an unfamiliar website.

Note that Apple has added 'Report Junk' link beneath the text "This sender is not in your contacts." Click "Report Junk" and this new sub-window appears:

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Click 'OK' and the deed is done! The invitation spam will be safely removed from both the Calendar and the Notifications counter. Extermination achieved. Perform this procedure on further invitation spam. When you're done, your Calendar will be clean and back to normal.

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It is assumed at this time that Apple is using Calendar 'Junk' reports to create a 'Black List' that will keep future invitation spam out of the Calendar. Because of the very similar coding used for email spam, I expect Apple will eventually combine both their email spam and Calendar invitation spam filtering systems. We'll see.

WHAT'S LEFT TO FIX

1) Apple still has to provide a 'Junk' reporting method in both the macOS and iOS Calendar applications.

2) Apple still has to provide a fix for Photo Sharing invitation spam.

Little steps to solve big problems.

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