Keep spam out of your Google Calendar – CNET

Isn’t spam in your Gmail inbox bad enough? Apparently not. Spammers are now invading your Google Calendar, using Gmail messages to trigger Google Calendar invitations. The spamming exploit takes advantage of the integration between Gmail and Calendar to send you fraudulent invitations that may contain a message with malicious links. Fortunately, you can prevent these spammers from blowing up your calendar through your Google Calendar settings.

Google Calendar has a setting that lets you see only the invitations you’ve responded to. So if there’s a sneaky email lurking in your spam folder set to trigger a spammy calendar event, it won’t show up on your calendar anymore. Instead, you’ll accept all of your other meetings and events through Gmail, rather than automatically seeing them on your calendar. 

Here’s how to get started.

1. Open Google Calendar on your desktop. 

2. Click the gear icon at the top right of the screen.

3. Click Settings.

4. Tap the reveal arrow next to General on the left-hand side of the screen to view Calendar options.

5. Tap Event settings.

6. Tap on Automatically add invitations event settings to the right, then select No, only show invitations to which I have responded.

That’s it! Now Google Calendar will prevent spam mail from triggering invitations in your calendar.

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