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Apple has added a "Report Junk" option to iCloud.com to help combat a recent increase in calendar spam, as noticed by a Reddit user over the weekend.

Now, when an iCloud user receives an unsolicited calendar invite from a sender who is not a contact, the event can be double clicked on and reported as junk.

icloud-calendar-spam-report-junk.jpg

Clicking on "Report Junk" opens a window confirming the invitation has been reported as junk. Junk invitations are automatically deleted from the calendar, and the sender's details are presumably reported to Apple for further investigation. There is also a "Not Junk" option if users make a mistake.

The option is currently only available on iCloud.com, but a Reddit user claims an Apple Support representative informed him it will be rolling out to the Calendar app on iOS, and presumably Mac, soon--which would make sense.

iCloud calendar spam is nothing new, but there was a major uptick in spam leading up to the Black Friday shopping holiday in November. The spam invites appear to originate mainly from Chinese email addresses, advertising questionable discounts on products such as Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglasses.

icloud-calendar-spam-joe.jpg

Late last month, an Apple spokesperson apologized and said the company is working to block spam calendar invites.
We are sorry that some of our users are receiving spam calendar invitations. We are actively working to address this issue by identifying and blocking suspicious senders and spam in the invites being sent.
iCloud users should not click on Accept, Decline, or Maybe if they receive a spam calendar invite, as choosing any of these options simply notifies the spammer that the account is active and ready for more unsolicited offers.

Instead, there are two workarounds. First, users can navigate to the iCloud.com settings and choose to receive all event invitations as email. Second, users can create a new calendar, name it Spam, move the spam invitation to the Spam calendar, and then delete the calendar entirely. Follow these step-by-step instructions.

Article Link: Apple Addresses iCloud Calendar Spam With New 'Report Junk' Option
 
  • Like
Reactions: OttawaGuy
Advertisers inapporpriately promoting this way is just beyond me.

First of all, this causes negative influence to the readers.
Secondly, their company can be easily traced and be reported/fined by following the link...

Why are they doing this?
 
That's good, but there's still the issue that spammers keep making new accounts every day to get around this exact sort of feature.
 
This has been a good excuse for me to switch to Google Calendar. Migrated all my calendars, integrated them into the Mac Calendar app, switched to the Google Calendar iOS app, and bye bye spam + better cloud services.
 
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Reactions: mi7chy
Should never have needed the publicity to force (Cr)Apple to get it's arse in gear. Customer focus is declining all the time at the moment. They need to get back to the arrogance of old, you know the one where it was actually deserved because they had superb, desirable products and a sense that it was worth investing in the Apple ecosystem because you knew there were more good things to come.
 
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Reactions: Count Blah
Anyone know if a way to do this with reminders as well?

I had a spam notification sent through a couple of weeks ago and the trick of creating a new calendar moving it and deleting doesn't seem to apply for Reminders.

Really irritating, I've resorted to turning reminders off for now.
 
I don't use iCloud calendars, but I can imagine this would be immensely irritating.

This doesn't seem like it should be that hard to fix through any one (or a choice from all) of the different solutions people have already suggested.

Things like this are why we get a load of derisory comments about repeated OS betas featuring new emoji. Because it makes you wonder how exactly Apple are spending their time, and whether their priorities are really in the right order.

Hopefully they will come up with a satisfactory solution soon. Merely adding a 'report junk' button isn't really good enough IMHO, but maybe it's a stop-gap until better solutions are arrived at.
 
What's standing in the way of the obvious, simple fix: delete the event without notifying the sender?
"Junk invitations are automatically deleted from the calendar"

Isn't this it? That is, unless this report-junk delete also notifies the sender of an active account. Probably good to get some verification that it doesn't.
 
Sorted. I still had to manually delete the events which then showed up as declined in the Calendar app on my Mac.

Hopefully Apple didn't send them a 'declined' notification!
 
I stopped using the iCloud calendar because of this.

Its nice that they added a report spam button, but I'd like a delete option that doesn't notify the sender that I declined.

I've since changed my settings so that it comes as an email (though as I mentioned I stopped using the iCloud for my calendar needs).
 
oh thank God, I couldn't take another invitation to some bull@@@ Rayban discount event from weird Chinese sellers. I was getting invited several times per day.
 
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