Fake sharemarket tips the new internet porn

Fake sharemarket tips are the new porn in cyberspace.

After surveying millions of spam messages, email security company Clearswift says more than a quarter of unsolicited emails last month were bogus stock tips. Pornography halved to just 5.62 per cent and libido-enhancers "drooped slightly" to 33 per cent.

Peter Croft, Clearswift Asia Pacific managing director, said email was a new route for an old scam.

"People have been illegally and unethically ramping the stock price on volatile stocks for years," he said.

"You wouldn't invest your hard-earned cash on the advice of a man in the street and the same should apply to emails from people you've never heard of. Our advice about spam stands - just delete them."

"You should never respond to it [spam], you should never buy anything from it, you should never use the 'remove address' [link] and you should treat everything with suspicion," he said. "Spam would die tomorrow if everybody just stopped buying things."