Monday, October 10, 2005
It's the End of the Blog as We Know It!
Maybe we were lucky. Maybe we were naive. But a couple of weeks ago this blog was hit with it's first "blogspam". When we first saw this comment ("Hi, I like your blog! I have a blog about used lance camper [sic]. Stop by and check it out sometime at [hotlink for used lance camper site]" we thought it was yet another internet surfer coming to know and admire the Monz. Then we realized it was an autogenerated piece of crap designed to increase some nimrod's Google page ranking. We deleted it, but more came, all with fake praise for the blog. Then we got one that didn't even include the fake praise: "Have you ever seen Asparagus this BIG? They grow up to 15in long and 2in wide. [link to an asparagus seed-selling blog]. We turned this one over to our New York legal editor, who ran a WHOIS search on Mr. Asparagus and found an Italian sounding name with a British e-mail address, to which he wrote:
To: [British Asparagus Dude with Italian Name] Because you or the company you hired to maximize your page rankings spammed my blog, be advised I will be doing the following:
1) Reporting to Google your site's abuse of their rules, which hopefully combined with other complaints will lead to you being dropped from their index.
2) I will be forwarding a copy of the spam and an explanation to the British consulate in New York for consideration if any laws have been broken.
We heared back:
And you are spamming my email box.
I have not authorized you to send me emails.
So I am reporting you to Google as well,
and remember that it is illegal to send non authorized emails.
Our man responded:
You did "authorize" me -- this is the address you supplied in your WHOIS record for receiving e-mail related to your domain. I direct you to re-read ICANN's rules. It appears that you violated both federal and state laws in spamming, as research indicates you autospam blogs. I imagine you violated British laws too, hence the report to the consulate. You might look around in the NY court database and see what you find. http://www.courts.state.ny.us/supctmanh/ Collection may be tough, but perhaps certain default judgments can be reported to BIA and might cause visa problems if you're thinking of visiting? Have a nice day.
We heard back. British Asparagus Dude is not pleased! But Monz is pleased with his lunch! Smoked turkey + tavern ham, nutty whole grain bread, apple and ripened banana. (Just to clear up some confusion from the other day, this banana was ordered from Harry and David(tm), the fruit guys.)
We were going to force all future comments to enter one of those word/number combos, but Monz wouldn't want to inconvenience his readers in the least! He'd rather inconvenience the editors, thus, the staff has begun the massive project of turning off comments for older posts.
Oh, and if all that wasn't enough,
no childhood (or other) memory is sacred anymore.
Maybe we were lucky. Maybe we were naive. But a couple of weeks ago this blog was hit with it's first "blogspam". When we first saw this comment ("Hi, I like your blog! I have a blog about used lance camper [sic]. Stop by and check it out sometime at [hotlink for used lance camper site]" we thought it was yet another internet surfer coming to know and admire the Monz. Then we realized it was an autogenerated piece of crap designed to increase some nimrod's Google page ranking. We deleted it, but more came, all with fake praise for the blog. Then we got one that didn't even include the fake praise: "Have you ever seen Asparagus this BIG? They grow up to 15in long and 2in wide. [link to an asparagus seed-selling blog]. We turned this one over to our New York legal editor, who ran a WHOIS search on Mr. Asparagus and found an Italian sounding name with a British e-mail address, to which he wrote:
To: [British Asparagus Dude with Italian Name] Because you or the company you hired to maximize your page rankings spammed my blog, be advised I will be doing the following:
1) Reporting to Google your site's abuse of their rules, which hopefully combined with other complaints will lead to you being dropped from their index.
2) I will be forwarding a copy of the spam and an explanation to the British consulate in New York for consideration if any laws have been broken.
We heared back:
And you are spamming my email box.
I have not authorized you to send me emails.
So I am reporting you to Google as well,
and remember that it is illegal to send non authorized emails.
Our man responded:
You did "authorize" me -- this is the address you supplied in your WHOIS record for receiving e-mail related to your domain. I direct you to re-read ICANN's rules. It appears that you violated both federal and state laws in spamming, as research indicates you autospam blogs. I imagine you violated British laws too, hence the report to the consulate. You might look around in the NY court database and see what you find. http://www.courts.state.ny.us/supctmanh/ Collection may be tough, but perhaps certain default judgments can be reported to BIA and might cause visa problems if you're thinking of visiting? Have a nice day.
We heard back. British Asparagus Dude is not pleased! But Monz is pleased with his lunch! Smoked turkey + tavern ham, nutty whole grain bread, apple and ripened banana. (Just to clear up some confusion from the other day, this banana was ordered from Harry and David(tm), the fruit guys.)
We were going to force all future comments to enter one of those word/number combos, but Monz wouldn't want to inconvenience his readers in the least! He'd rather inconvenience the editors, thus, the staff has begun the massive project of turning off comments for older posts.
Oh, and if all that wasn't enough,
no childhood (or other) memory is sacred anymore.
Comments:
5 comments
waw- you're inspiring me to go to law school! i mean- look at all the stuff i'll be able to do with the knowledge ;)
-hey can i put you in my links? or are you trying to keep a low profile with the private profile and everything--
ps: tell monz -no more bananas!
-hey can i put you in my links? or are you trying to keep a low profile with the private profile and everything--
ps: tell monz -no more bananas!
There's a great Debra Dickerson comment on going to law school which we will have to put up soon. We would be honored by the link inclusion -- the editors need to consult the Monz on revising our link section, but at the moment Monz is more interested that we pick up our junk, er, storage items from his office.
