Monday, September 25, 2006

If I were an evil spammer...

I have just been looking at Jill's excellent post about MyBlogLog as well as their quick response, and of course had to have a look at it. It looks like innocent fun, but I agree totally with Jill, I don't want to have my face or my information on the front page of all sites I visit.

However: some do. Now if I was an evil spammer, a seller of porn or something equally evil and tempting, like WoW gold, what would I do? I'd make a blog, register with MyBlogLog, write a bot to click its way around the blogosphere through the MyBlogLog links, and leave my "face" in as many spots as possible.

Of course, the MyBlogLog providers probably thought about this before they made the nice, cool, social sharing technology, so I am sure there are ways to block spammers other than doing it by hand with each and every one that leaves a "face" on your blog. Or at least they are thinking about it:
Similarly, the site publisher will be able to ban the appearance of specific profile pictures from the widget and will no longer know when those individual MyBlogLog users visit their site. That feature is also not yet available.
Now I am looking forwards to seeing how this will develop. It's too good an opportunity for exposure at other people's web sites (some of them heavily trafficked) for some to pass up, and if the creators and users manage to keep it clean, that's a great feat of sorting and censoring.

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