Google will punish bad spam blogs eventually. But they're also have a tendency to punish good blogs accidentally as well. If the probability of being punished for being good was near zero, I bet there'd be less spammers
"If it was not of value, it would not be profitable and hence, would not exist."
Thievery, blackmail, extortion, etc. are all profitable, and yet, I would argue not of value. So is legally tricking people into paying for services they do not want. This is a terrible sentiment that can be used to justify any number of shady dealings. But it's also housed in an incoherent paragraph where the author briefly argues both sides, so I have no idea whether he actually agrees with the above statement or not.
Playing devil's advocate for a moment, No property or person is being harmed with spam. Time is wasted, yes. But no crime is being committed in the normal sense of the word. To compare spam to thievery, blackmail and extortion (where their is a removal of property of threats to a person) is not a very good analogy and I think taking things a bit too far. It's closer to aggresively handing out flyers on the street and possibly a case of harrassment.
I would disagree. Phishing spam exists in an effort to steal or otherwise harm the recipients who are tricked into responding. Prescription drug spam can tempt those who may have a moment of weakness into breaking the law, and they could possibly purchase counterfeit goods that can directly harm the person. Money is spent by companies who have to either self maintain or pay a service to maintain a spam filter. I occasionally miss important emails that are incorrectly filtered as spam, one was an offer for a side job that would have paid me real money.
To be clear, I was specifically arguing against the quoted statement, and the idea that because something is profitable, it must be valuable. That idea has implications far beyond spam. I would argue against spam, as well, but differently. S_A_P's response strikes me as a pretty good one.
I can't agree that no person or property is harmed by spam. A lot of resources have needed to be spent to reduce the spam that lands in my inbox. Someone paid for that, and most of us are probably happy that this effort has been made. There is, of course, the time lost in dealing the spam that does make it through the filters. There's also storage space that gets wasted in the process.
If you are a forum admin then the value of your side will go down if you don't clean up spam regularly (and for big forums you might have to cleanup several times every single day). I'd rather compare it with gluing advertisement illegally all over the place.
>> But no crime is being committed [...] It's closer to aggresively handing out flyers on the street and possibly a case of harrassment.
Well, technically littering, graffiti-vandalism, etc is also a crime. In certain cities treated harder than small thefts.
All these loophole-abusers make me really sick. Even if there's no "law" making it "illegal" it doesn't mean you have to abuse every possible loophole there is in the "system" to make some money "legally". If you are going to ignore ethics and cause pain to people anyway just grow some balls and rob a bank instead.
Some spam blogfarms play the arbitrage game with Adsense, but it's more profitable for them to use GoogleAds to pull traffic in and push visitors towards their affiliate links.
Content tends to be scraped content, sometimes Markov chained or other spinning methods. The content to display is based on keywords.
Depending on the spam website solution, the automation is done on a number of levels (depending on the blogfarm technique):
* WordpressMU with wildcard subdomains based on a spreadsheet of keywords
* Automated set up of Blogger blogs (either using Captcha breakers, Mechanical turk, or just asking the user to solve captchas 10 at a time)
* Automated publishing of content via XMLRPC (for wordpress and/or blogger), or other interfaces. Then almost always ping-servers are pinged.
* Automated creation of websites given a template and a heap of content - sometimes Markoved sometimes spun. Grabbing content either through screen scraping, RSS, text files, anything they can get their hands on. (They tried wikipedia for a while, last time I looked, they were dabbling with Yahoo answers for both content and inbound links)
* automated link building. Basically finding fingerprints of known no-rel-follow tools - like Pligg, Wordpress on edu/gov domains etc. Includes automated comment spam to build inbound links.
It does surprise me the lengths the successful spammers go to in blogspam and spam websites. They figure out this is still more profitable than building real long-term value and writing interesting content. Sometimes I think it's one of those "beat Google at it's own game", and the rush of earning quick money.
It must work, because I'd wager that there are more spam blogs/sites than good blogs/sites. God help you if you try to find legitimate information on health or insurance.
The volume of spam blogs compared to non-spam blogs isn't an indicator of working. The volume is based on two factors:
* Automation at the high-end of spamming
* Creating a wide a net as possible to pull in visitors
Much like the volume of spam emails is there because the conversion rate is so poor, so many emails get filtered. By using volume as a vector, despite the diminishing returns, spammers aim to get a decent return on their investment.
The marginal cost of email or a new spamblog is low (though email is still by far cheaper). That's the basis for them being so many of them. I know the conversion rate for email is miniscule (but multiplying that by millions can generate a decent sum). No idea about the conversion rate of spam blogs.
The source of income isn't adsense, it's affiliate products, and in those areas. Porn and pills are the one that are profitable.
And yes, spam blogs do work, they work well enough that when Google finds a blog farm and drops them out of the index, spammers take some time to figure out how they got spotted, adjust their approach or make a suitable correction, and start again. The methods of creating spam sites and blogs differ over time, but the general approach is still a core spam technique.
"As I said above, I don’t have the luxury of ethics at this stage."
Ethics is not a luxury. Properly defined and applied, what is ethical is what is needed to survive as a human (which means going by reason), long term. This is totally at odds with what spammers do, which is to defraud people, violate contracts, etc. Running or using a bot network is trespass and theft. In this context, everyone, including the spammer, knows where the botnet came from.
Yes, this guy might get some money, for a while, just like any other common criminal can (while constantly worrying about getting caught, long after the crime was committed). But compare that pathetic psychological state and the small, ephemeral trickle of income to what someone doing honest work can earn (a successful startup, for example), and you will see that the immoral is the impractical.
If "survival" only means continued metabolism and respiration, yes.
But I submit that "survival" means more than just that. We're human beings, so for us, survival requires independent thought, art, science, honesty, self-esteem, productive work, and a whole lot more.
I'd call that "independent thought, art, science, honesty, self-esteem, productive work", and keep the definition of survival close to something like "You're heart's still beating.".
But the problem with your definition is that if we go by it, human survival in the long-term is not included.
Your mind's independent thought is ultimately the thing that ensures that your heart keeps beating. Without it, there will come a point where you can't keep making the things you need to stay alive physically.
I understand where you're coming from, but not everyone has the same ethical sense that you do. I think you would be hard pressed to say that people without those things (art, science, productive work, honesty, etc.) are not surviving. Maybe they aren't thriving... but that's different.
I get the feeling spamming is often the work of people who can ignore the fact that some economic activities are harmful or bothersome to the people they are trying to reach, and to their own brand (beyond the erectile dysfunction category, which is a whole other league).
I was once acquainted with a company that sent unsolicited mail (travel related) through one of those gazillion email databases. When I asked why were they doing it, their response was a blank stare—Well, it gives us a 10 to 1 return on investment each time we do it, why should we stop?.
It's the same reason why it's so difficult to cancel your cable plan, companies notice that if they ask their customers to fax in their contract, cancellation rates diminish to a fraction. Profit!
Spam is really a theft of someone elses time. Because they only steal a little time from every victim, spammers may see it as a "small" theft. Shoplifters use a similar rationalization when stealing from a large store.
My revenge fantasy is to have spammers serve prison time equal to amount of time they have stolen from their victims i.e. ten seconds a day per victim * 1 million victims sounds about right.
Do we really have to be so imprecise in our language that now "spam" in a headline can refer to "blog spam"? How about "comment spam" as well? What else is there? How about I write an article titled "spam is now illegal" and by the fifth paragraph you find out I'm talking about unsolicited faxes? To 99% of readers out there the last thing they think of when they read "spam" is blog spam.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 73.0 ms ] threadI'm a little confused by that statement. It doesn't seem like it is blocked.
It appears his old username is/was.
Thievery, blackmail, extortion, etc. are all profitable, and yet, I would argue not of value. So is legally tricking people into paying for services they do not want. This is a terrible sentiment that can be used to justify any number of shady dealings. But it's also housed in an incoherent paragraph where the author briefly argues both sides, so I have no idea whether he actually agrees with the above statement or not.
Spam is harmful, plain and simple.
Well, technically littering, graffiti-vandalism, etc is also a crime. In certain cities treated harder than small thefts.
All these loophole-abusers make me really sick. Even if there's no "law" making it "illegal" it doesn't mean you have to abuse every possible loophole there is in the "system" to make some money "legally". If you are going to ignore ethics and cause pain to people anyway just grow some balls and rob a bank instead.
Content tends to be scraped content, sometimes Markov chained or other spinning methods. The content to display is based on keywords.
Depending on the spam website solution, the automation is done on a number of levels (depending on the blogfarm technique):
* WordpressMU with wildcard subdomains based on a spreadsheet of keywords * Automated set up of Blogger blogs (either using Captcha breakers, Mechanical turk, or just asking the user to solve captchas 10 at a time) * Automated publishing of content via XMLRPC (for wordpress and/or blogger), or other interfaces. Then almost always ping-servers are pinged. * Automated creation of websites given a template and a heap of content - sometimes Markoved sometimes spun. Grabbing content either through screen scraping, RSS, text files, anything they can get their hands on. (They tried wikipedia for a while, last time I looked, they were dabbling with Yahoo answers for both content and inbound links) * automated link building. Basically finding fingerprints of known no-rel-follow tools - like Pligg, Wordpress on edu/gov domains etc. Includes automated comment spam to build inbound links.
It does surprise me the lengths the successful spammers go to in blogspam and spam websites. They figure out this is still more profitable than building real long-term value and writing interesting content. Sometimes I think it's one of those "beat Google at it's own game", and the rush of earning quick money.
* Automation at the high-end of spamming * Creating a wide a net as possible to pull in visitors
Much like the volume of spam emails is there because the conversion rate is so poor, so many emails get filtered. By using volume as a vector, despite the diminishing returns, spammers aim to get a decent return on their investment.
The marginal cost of email or a new spamblog is low (though email is still by far cheaper). That's the basis for them being so many of them. I know the conversion rate for email is miniscule (but multiplying that by millions can generate a decent sum). No idea about the conversion rate of spam blogs.
The source of income isn't adsense, it's affiliate products, and in those areas. Porn and pills are the one that are profitable.
And yes, spam blogs do work, they work well enough that when Google finds a blog farm and drops them out of the index, spammers take some time to figure out how they got spotted, adjust their approach or make a suitable correction, and start again. The methods of creating spam sites and blogs differ over time, but the general approach is still a core spam technique.
Ethics is not a luxury. Properly defined and applied, what is ethical is what is needed to survive as a human (which means going by reason), long term. This is totally at odds with what spammers do, which is to defraud people, violate contracts, etc. Running or using a bot network is trespass and theft. In this context, everyone, including the spammer, knows where the botnet came from.
Yes, this guy might get some money, for a while, just like any other common criminal can (while constantly worrying about getting caught, long after the crime was committed). But compare that pathetic psychological state and the small, ephemeral trickle of income to what someone doing honest work can earn (a successful startup, for example), and you will see that the immoral is the impractical.
But I submit that "survival" means more than just that. We're human beings, so for us, survival requires independent thought, art, science, honesty, self-esteem, productive work, and a whole lot more.
Your mind's independent thought is ultimately the thing that ensures that your heart keeps beating. Without it, there will come a point where you can't keep making the things you need to stay alive physically.
I think Maslow's heirarchy of needs is pretty relevant here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs
I was once acquainted with a company that sent unsolicited mail (travel related) through one of those gazillion email databases. When I asked why were they doing it, their response was a blank stare—Well, it gives us a 10 to 1 return on investment each time we do it, why should we stop?.
It's the same reason why it's so difficult to cancel your cable plan, companies notice that if they ask their customers to fax in their contract, cancellation rates diminish to a fraction. Profit!
My revenge fantasy is to have spammers serve prison time equal to amount of time they have stolen from their victims i.e. ten seconds a day per victim * 1 million victims sounds about right.