Government and Economy Mills: Banks Are Loaning Again According to SBA chief Karen Gordon Mills, efforts to get money to capital-strapped small businesses are beginning to pay-off, with banks starting to make government-backed loans. WSJ.com GM Begins Cutting 1,100 Dealers Facing General Motors, facing a probable bankruptcy filing by June 1, is telling 1,100 U.S. dealers they will be terminated as the automaker starts shrinking its retail network. Bloomberg.com [Read Full Article]

Like all great events, I remember the day I learned that spam was, if not dead, gravely wounded. It was November 17th, 2008. The story was that an investigation by internet service providers (ISPs) Hurricane Electric and Global Crossing into McColo, a notorious hosting service responsible for housing as many as 70% of the spam email operations on the Web, led to the plug being pulled on McColo’s operations by their ISPs. The end of McColo killed 70% of the spam on the Web, but as predicted, the spammers are back. Gourmet Spam You would have to imagine that the death of McColo last November was a serious wake-up call to the spam industry—yes, there really is such a thing—and you would be right. While the experts are still working on where all this is coming from now, that is less important than the changes that the spam has undergone. It is more sophisticated and better designed than before. According to Dermot Harnett, principal anal... [Read Full Article]