A lot of stock spam consists of a company press release, padded out with the usual claims that the stock is an "IMMEDIATE STRONG BUY" or "WILL EXPLODE ON MONDAY". The press release, lifted off Yahoo! Finance or PRNewsWire, provides most of the spammer's copy. He just has to add a few wildly optimistic claims about expected performance, some hashbuster text and a fake email address, and his work is done. If you ignore the wild claims designed to make you think that this is a stock worth buying, the actual information is usually accurate — or at least as accurate as penny stock press releases ever are.

So I wouldn't normally have paid much attention to a stock spam promoting heavily-spammed Goldmark Entertainment (GDKI.PK) which claimed that the company had just signed up Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, or whatever he's calling himself this week) as a producer. But something struck me about the English of the release:

Sean "P.Diddy" Combs tells that it is pleasantly to deal with these guys. They as anybody else know entertainment industry and exactly know what is required for the American audience. He also emphasizes exclusivity of his fresh album Press Play and tells that the presentation of this album on october 17 will make an result of the blasted bomb.

BabelFish? Is that you?

Out of curiosity, I looked on the Goldmark Entertainment website. Hmm, no mention of Sean Combs. You'd have thought that after pulling off a coup like that, they'd get the press release up there as soon as possible. But we all know how hard it is to keep a website up to date. Perhaps they just hadn't got around to it yet. Maybe Yahoo! Finance has the goods.

Nope. Seems that Yahoo!'s latest news for Goldmark is still a press release about Goldmark's VP entertaining the marines at Yuma Air Station. Damn, Puffy's going to be mad when he discovers that Goldmark didn't even think it was worth putting out a release. What is he, chopped liver?

A quick search with Google reveals that the hot news about Goldmark and Sean Combs shows up only in comment spam and on websites that track spam. Could it be that ... gasp ... the spammer has completely invented this stunning news? Say it isn't so!

So if you ever find yourself reading a piece of spam and thinking "Well, this is spam, but the information is probably OK because it's just copied from the company press releases.", remember that it ain't necessarily so. The first time a spammer tries a new trick they typically make a fist of it, but they usually sharpen up their game pretty quickly thereafter. In a few weeks, you won't be able to tell the parts of the press release that are authentic from the ones that the spammer has invented. The only safe thing to do is to disbelieve everything you read in a spam.

Even if it promises to make a result of the blasted bomb.