10/19/2005

i doubt it's among the signs of the apocalypse, but it's certainly got to be close.

i'm talking about splogs, as they have appeared recently on blogspot, google's hosted blogs. ralph and i have both seen it taking hold, though ralph more than i. i found an article about the whole madness with spammers taking a crack at google. i'm not going to post more links, since you can find them on that page. the unfortunate corporate idealology of google seems to want to ignore it, but they need to recognize that this is a problem that is not going away. at least the official google blog, blogger buzz, acknowledges the issue, even if there are no final solutions yet.

google, in blogger, simplified the blogging process so much that literally anyone can use it. in fact, most blogs you see on blogger, if you click that "next blog" button, are simple templated things. all they have to do is write their post and click submit.

now that simplicity is poisoning blogspot from the inside. not only are there automated spam blogs, or splogs, but also automated splog comments - as we've seen. some have been anonymously posted, but most are posted by supposedly real users. those users are nothing more than automatons, being used in turn by spammers, using blogspot for gain.

what gain? in a word, adsense. google has also implemented a revenue program, called adsense, which allows ads to be put on one's blog. for every time someone sees an ad, the blogger (by this i mean the person posting, not the website) makes a little money. you see now, don't you? in automatically generating thousands of fake blogs, each one coupled with the adsense, they are not only wasting google's hosting webspace, people's time, and generally annoying people, they are stealing money.

but, you say, i would never visit a splog! that's all well and good. but remember those comments? people might get curious. people will find those splogs, even if only by accident. and one more thing: the "next blog" button. the more splogs are created, the more chance one has of finding one and visiting it. sure, you can click the back button on your browser, but as for adsense, the damage has already been done.

as for solutions: no one has any (yet). blogger does have some precautions in place, such as captcha, word verification, and the flag button. one more proposed remedy is to start charging for blog use. well, if that happens, i suppose i'll pack up my things here at blogspot and move to another free host, like msn spaces. i guess things could be worse. makes me glad i save all my templates locally.

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