Random Ramblings

Blogger Spam

My sister's blog got hit with some blog-spam (not sure if there's a new name for that or not). The problem, of course, is that since it is free to sign up for a blogger account, anyone can do it including spammers. And if you shut down one spam-username, they'll just start a new one (since it's free).

One option is to make it non-free ... then you could track people through their credit card company. Of course, that would also pretty much kill blogging as we know it.

Another option is the use of those wavy-letter images that you may have seen. You type in the word in the image and it assumes you must be a real person not a computer program -- since lots of spam is computer generated, this can cut down on a lot of spam. But it also requires people to type in more stuff every time they want to post/comment, so it may detract from people wanting to blog. Again, that's bad.

One last option that I've heard of is to offer bounties for people to "hunt" down the spammers. Not quite like a citizen's arrest, more on the order of a free private eye service. If you can prove that someone is a spammer, then you'd get $100 (or $1000 or whatever). The hope is that there are enough geeks out there who would be willing to do the leg-work, then a company/legal agency could handle the actual court case.