So, as soon as I got done reviewing the latest ideas to fight blog spam, I get this post in my reader titled Blogger takes the lazy option on spam blogs: new “flag” option.

Apparently, Blogger has added an option to “Flag Blogs as Objectionable“. That is,

The next time your reading a blogspot.com hosted blog that’s been recently created (it only applies to new blogs), you can know tell Google if you don’t like it and if they get enough complaints they’ll either “delist” the blog from the “Next blog” option found at the top of blogspot hosted blogs, or if they deem its really serious, god help us, they might even ban it. So basically get enough people together to target a site you don’t like on Blogger now and Google will help make sure no one gets to see it…that’s right, because they’ve also included “politically incorrect, potential hurtful, or just plain gross” in the criteria, but chances are if you’ve got a spam blog you’ll be totally unaffected.

Possible problems?

• The feature applies only to blogs created from now; all preexisting blogs are immune, even spam blogs.
• The guidelines for objecting are too loose—nonexistent, really.
• It’s all too easy for a gang to attack any blog for any reason and log multiple “objectionable” complaints.
• The feature does nothing to directly address spam blogs.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2005 and is filed under Fighting Spam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.