It was no surprise to see blackhat SEO happening based on the search term “Google Wave invitation”, as reported by Websense when the service was launched. Well, interest in Google’s new Wave service and API is still running high, invitations are even up for sale on online auction sites and the opportunistic interest of cybercrime is still piqued.

Email harvesting or affiliate advertising associated web pages are springing up intent on monetising this with false promises. The first I noticed was doing the rounds on Twitter, promising users a Google Wave invite “within the hour” if they would just surrender their twitter username and email address. As you can see, about 50% of the relevant page content was made up of affiliate-based advertising. This iste had a particulalry tricksy domain name too, lending it credibility, www.google.com-wave.info making it of course a part of the com-wave.info domain, not an official Google page.

Fake Google Wave on Twitter

“Now we need to take some details from you so that someone with an invite can send you one! We promise to only share your details with people who claim to have invites“

Google Wave Invitation System

Needless to say, I still haven’t received my Google Wave invitation, from either of these sources.

My advice? Wait until a friend sends you an invitiaton. If you don’t have any friends using Google Wave, why would you want an invitaiton, after all it’s about communication and collaboration isn’t it?