RSS and Blog spam remain a maddening phenom in the world of Really Simple Syndication. Doc Searls takes the time to elaborate about this on his blog and explains why.
He pulls a quote from “Feedster’s” Scott Johnson and his “Conversation with a Blog Spammer.” It’s an excellent of bit of information and editorialization:
Apparently he purchased tools from a company called rssequalizer.com (again no link; no juice) which is a ready made spamming toolkit using RSS to build your sites from other people’s content. And he didn’t know that it was an issue? He couldn’t tell he was a spammer? Sheesh. Give me a break people. I’ve heard this one before from spammers and its always a line.
Just my .02. I’m sorry but Blog Spam is a huge issue for everyone in our business and this kind of stuff has to stop. Yes I took a very, very harsh tone but we have to do this. Getting harsh on spammers is the only way things are going to get better. And I mean I could have been harsher — I could have called for razing his home and sowing salt into the ground but I’m a nice guy. I’ll settle for razing his domains, his IP addresses and his ad sense account.
What the good doctor posted was absolutely true. Most of the industry that blogs and utilizes RSS know their business. They have the ability to control some of this and in some cases by really simple measures. It’s up to the adopters of these mediums to stop their abuse before it becomes even more widespread.
John Stith is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
