The FBI and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) continue to receive numerous complaints from individuals who have become victims to work-at-home scams and warn consumers to use caution when looking for employment online.

These work-at-home schemes are designed by criminals to gain the trust of job seekers in order to take advantage of working relationships to further illegal activity. Most victims are unaware they are engaging in criminal behavior until it is too late.

In many of the scams, victims are often hired to “process payments,” “transfer funds,” or “reship products.” These scams exploit unwitting employees by having them cash fraudulent checks, transfer illegally obtained funds for the criminals, or receive stolen merchandise and ship it to the criminals.

Other scams ask victims to sign up to be a “mystery shopper,” receiving fraudulent checks with instructions to cash the checks and wire funds to “test” a company’s services. Victims are told they will be compensated with a portion of the merchandise of funds.

Job scams also often provide criminals the opportunity to commit identity theft when victims provide their personal information, sometimes even bank account information, to their potential “employer.” The criminal/employer can then use the victim’s information to open credit cards, post online auctions, register Web sites, etc., in the victim’s name to commit additional crimes.

“Don’t get duped by these criminals offering easy money. Remain skeptical of unsolicited job offers that sound too good to be true and report any scams you might encounter,” said Richard Kolko, FBI National Press Office.

Search remains a significant force in the online advertising space, but its growth is slowing.

Search’s growth is projected at only 14.9 percent in 2009 and is not expected to see gains until 2012. The economy is shrinking all advertising spending growth. Search ad spending growth in the midteens in 2009 is still positive, especially compared with other ad formats and media.

eMarketer estimates that search ad spending passed $10 billion in 2008 and is expected to reach nearly $20 billion by the end of 2013. Search advertising’s share of total online ad spending reached 44 percent in the first half of 2008, up from 41 percent in the first half of 2007. In 2009, search is projected to account for almost 48 percent of the online advertising spend.

“Consumer behavior will reduce search spending growth to less than the 30% seen from 2005 to 2007,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst and author of the new report, “Search Ad Spending: Reactions to a Recession.”

“But at the same time, continued searching for pricing and products that fit into current needs will sustain growth that is still strong in comparison with other advertising methods,” he said.

McAfee has released its 2009 threat predictions. The top trend for 2009 is the continued exploitation of the financial crisis to scam users with fake financial services, fake investment firms and fake legal services.

“Computer users face a dangerous one-two punch today,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs, McAfee’s research group.

“The current economic crisis is delivering a blow to our financial well-being, while malware authors are taking advantage of our distraction to deliver a roundhouse strike.”

Cybercriminals have moved to the Internet cloud as their main delivery vehicle and take advantage of the attractions of Web 2.0. McAfee expects this trend to continue throughout 2009.

Threats will continue to take evasive action against security measures. One example is single use binary files, which are an attacker’s equivalent of a single use credit card number used by consumers when shopping online. These binaries help to create a large amount of threats, which will make more difficult for victims to describe their attackers, and make it harder for defenders to catch them.

McAfee predicts increased attacks involving USB sticks and flash memory devices used in camera, picture frames and other electronics.

Last year McAfee saw the malware underground use mainstream practices in an effort to “sell” software that was either misleading or fraudulent. This trend will continue as cybercriminals still see a lucrative market in this area.

Spam traffic dropped significantly when ISPs shutdown spam host McColo Corp., the source of up to 60 percent of global spam. In 2009, there will be a continued shift in organizations, from passive support of law enforcement to an active role of working with ISPs and global Internet organizations such as ICANN.

A record number of more than 1.4 billion mobile messages are expected to be delivered nationwide on Inauguration Day, according to estimates based on industry analyst and calculated by the Messaging and Mobile Media division of VeriSign.

Based on the continued rise in mobile messaging and the historic nature of the inaugural, VeriSign expects the Election Day record of 803 million messages carried on its network that was set on November 4,2008 to be easily broken.

The company estimates mobile messaging to increase by about 15 percent on the day Barack Obama and Joe Biden take the oath of office and then President Obama addresses the nation for the first time.

“Messaging numbers are continuously on the rise, and we expect to see single-day records being shattered as the year progresses,” said Michael Campbell, senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing, VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media.

“On Inauguration Day, we foresee the potential to set another single-day record. Based on our recent New Year’s Eve experience managing a single-hour record of over 82 million mobile messages as the clock struck midnight in the Eastern time zone, we are more than capable of handling the increased traffic volume.”

The Online Publishing Association, (OPA), has released a new report that found after analyzing independent Dynamic Logic MarketNorms data, advertising effectiveness scores on quality, original content sites, as represented by OPA members, were numerically higher on the Web in general, on portals or on ad networks.

The new report, “Improving Ad Performance Online” is the second in a series of OPA reports using Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms database. The first study was conducted in July, 2008.

“The research has shown that a quality advertising environment delivers better results,” said OPA President Pam Horan. “Quality is proving to be a key point of differentiation during challenging economic times, increasing advertising performance relative to ad networks, portals, and overall MarketNorms.”

Since the first report in July, aided brand awareness score on OPA member sites have increased 38 percent, while scores on ad networks have decreased 19 percent.

Similarly, brand favorability scores for OPA member sites have risen 27 percent, while ad networks, portals and MarketNorms have dropped 29 percent, 17 percent and 6 percent respectively.

The new data also shows that younger audiences (18-34 years old) are estimated to be about twice as likely (106% better, on average) to form favorable opinions about advertised brands on OPA member sites than on portals and MarketNorms (83% better).

“”This data is particularly important because the current recession is the first since online advertising has become a mainstream reality,” said Horan.

“At a time when every advertiser is looking for the best return on their investment, a quality environment matters more than ever. While advertisers with tight budgets may consider the cheap alternative provided by ad networks, the adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is as true today as it was a hundred years ago.”

The majority (81%) of online shoppers have read product or retailer reviews by other customers when doing their holiday shopping, according to Nielsen Online.

Customer reviews are an important research tool for online consumers, with 71 percent saying that consumer reviews make them more comfortable that they are buying the right product.

When reading customer feedback, 63 percent of online shoppers said it was important to have multiple reviews for each product; 14 percent looked for reviews from trusted a source; and just three percent wanted reviews by people they knew personally.

“Consumer reviews are a must-have for online retailers, especially during the holiday season when shoppers are buying for others in categories they’re less familiar with,” said Ken Cassar, vice president, industry insights, Nielsen Online.

“Perhaps more than any other time of year, consumers are looking for outside feedback for guidance.”

Close to a quarter (24%) of online shoppers have spent more than $500 so far this holiday season, with 22 percent spending between  $100-199 online. The majority (78%) of consumers said convenience was the main reason for shopping online.

The most popular reason to shop at a particular online retailer was having made a purchase their in the past, with 62 percent of respondents. Search engines were the second most popular way to find an online retailer, with 38 percent of respondents

Google has launched a new API in its message center called GData API that allows Google to communicate with webmasters on site issues.

Webmasters can use GData to access feeds from the Google Message Center without having to continually check your messages in Webmaster tools

The Message Center GData API allows webmasters to retrieve all messages, mark them as read or unread, and delete messages.

The Google Webmaster Central Blog provides more details.

Retrieve messages: The messages feed contains all the messages sent to your account. These messages have important information about your verified sites. Examples of messages include infinite spaces warnings and crawl rate change notifications.

Mark messages as read or unread: In order to keep track of new communications from Google, you can mark your messages as read or unread, the same way that you would manage your inbox. If you retrieve a single message, this message will be automatically marked as read.

Delete messages: It’s possible to delete messages using the GData API. However, be careful because if you delete a message through the API it will also be deleted in your Webmaster Tools account, as both interfaces share the same data.

For more information visit the GData website. The homepage of the Webmaster Tools GData API has a section on message feeds, and details about protocol.

Google has recently begun providing Google Product Search users with information on the tax and shipping costs of items in the U.S.

Users will now be able to see tax and shipping cost displayed alongside the product listings for which merchants have submitted this information. Google says that by providing this information it is a good way to maximize the visibility of your products during the holiday shopping season. It also helps buyers when they are making purchasing decisions.

The Google Base Help page explains how to submit information.

You can submit this information in two ways:
1. Set account-level default values in your Google Base account: These preferences will serve as the default values for all of your items. This is the easiest way to set up tax and shipping for your account.
2. Include item-level override values in your data feeds or via the Google Base API: These values will override your account-level default settings for that item.
To submit tax information there are three options.
1. Opt to not charge tax.
2. Set a tax rate based on the state an item ships to.
3. Use an estimate based on the destination ZIP code. Note: To estimate the tax rate, we use data from Tax Data Systems based on the destination ZIP code.
For shipping there are also three options.
1. Specify a flat shipping rate (or free shipping).
2. Define custom tables if the shipping rate you charge varies by price, weight, or number of items. Note: If you define a table based on the number of items, for now, we’ll use the rate in the first row only.
3. Apply a carrier-calculated rate if the shipping rate you charge is based on rates from UPS, FedEx, or USPS. Note: We use daily rates for UPS, and standard (non-retail counter) rates for FedEx.

Google also has tips for Google Product Search merchants.

From the Google Base Blog: Include unique product identifiers: In addition to using our five required attributes, be sure to include the recommended attributes relevant to your products, such as product identifiers like MPN, UPC, or ISBN. By including these, you’re giving us more information to help us include your products on Google Product Search product pages (our merchant comparison pages) when multiple merchants are selling the same product.

Use effective titles: There’s nothing like an accurate title to tell shoppers at a glance exactly what you’re selling, so be sure to use detailed and descriptive titles for your products. Do keep in mind that Product Search truncates titles to under 70 characters, so avoid exceedingly lengthy titles.

Write accurate descriptions: Descriptions offer an overview of the product you’re selling, so make sure that your descriptions are accurate and more than a few words in length. But if your descriptions are over 150 characters, you may want to shorten them to only include the most crucial information, as Product Search truncates longer descriptions.

Submit your feeds frequently: Lastly, remember to submit your data feeds regularly — up to once a day — to ensure that your product information is current for shoppers.