Friday, September 21, 2007

What Me Splog?!?

Got Splog?
IN A RATHER LAUGHABLE TURN of events, Blogger's anti-spam technology recently (not to mention mistakenly) identified Daily Dotventures as a splog.

A few days ago I noticed that I was prompted for word verification whenever I made a post to my blog. And here I was thinking all along that I was simply experiencing improved security measures, what with the previous Blogger trojan spam storms.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on that small orange circle "thingy" with a question mark in the middle. I was expecting to see a message heralding the remarkable Blogger security standards but to my bewilderment, I was led to a page stating that my blog was identified by Bloggers' spam prevention measures to be a spam blog.

It was like downing a half-gallon of espresso at 2AM!



Personally, I think that word verification or "CAPTCHA" features should be made mandatory across all current social platforms especially blogs. Today's Web - 2.0 and beyond - is all about interactivity and user contribution. So why not implement a challenge-response mechanism to ensure that the contributor is indeed human and not a program? He or she should've been typing away at a computer for several minutes already; why would it be such a bother to exert a couple of more keystrokes?

Security and laziness do not mingle in the same circle of friends. You don't want word verification? You might as well send your email address to spam central.

Unfortunately, Blogger thinks word verification should be the exception and not the rule. So despite my unwillingness, I requested for "unlocking" of my account since I do not want to be identified as a splogger. Thus, I received the following in my email this morning:
Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that
it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and
sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your
patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
Well, obviously them spambots are posting "as normal" evidenced by the proliferation of spam blogs within the Blogger community. That there is the greater inconvenience.

To the Blogger Team, apology accepted but really, you won't have to apologize and look like schmucks if only the measure was in place prior and not after the act.

There must be a reason you guys call it spam "PREVENTION". Right?

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