Spam filters force Beaver magazine to change its name

One of Canada’s oldest magazines has reportedly changed its name because of the problem of spam and web filters incorrectly blocking its content.

The magazine’s name is “The Beaver”.

According to a BBC news report, The Beaver’s attempts to expand its readership through internet marketing fell foul of over-zealous anti-spam software and web filtering software (particularly at schools) which sometimes block sites based upon keywords.

It will probably shock internet users, as it did me, that people hunting the web for “beaver” are not always looking for the semi-aquatic rodents famous for their industrious dam-building.

And so, after some 90 years, the magazine has decided to rebrand itself “Canada’s History”.

The magazine isn’t the only institution to have suffered because of ambiguity over the word “beaver”. In 2001, Beaver University in Pennsylvania rebranded itself…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.