Blogs and Spam

Lately I have read and heard in the news that low-life spammers have found a new way to deliver their messages. That way is blogs. They are now leaving flattering little comments on blogs with links to their commercial websites. In the past few days five of these comments have been posted in this blog. Blogger.com has some tools available to help prevent this activity. I implemented two of them yesterday. My blog will no longer accept anonymous comments. In order to post a comment on this blog a user must have a Blogger account and be logged in. I also turned on the word verification feature. Word verification is designed to prevent automatic computer-generated comments. A human being must correctly type in the word that is displayed.

I hate spam. Before I switched to RoadRunner my dial-up internet email account was almost unusable because of spam. Since I got the new ISP I have been very careful with my email address and use free email services whenever I must post an email address on the internet. Pop-ups were the other way that spammers were making my life miserable. The pop-up blocker eliminated that problem, but now some websites are implementing flash technology to bring back the pop-ups. I have decided to boycott these sites. At the present time I know of only two offenders that I used to visit on a regular basis. One is the Drudge Report. I can easily do without Matt Drudge’s brand of right-wing sensationalism. I used to visit this site because he compiled late breaking news. Now with RSS newsreaders I can get the latest headlines from reliable news sources. The other site that I am boycotting is FlyerTalk Miles Forums. I hate to give up this site because I have learned a great deal from it regarding the frequent flyer travel reward programs, but my irritation with spam and pop-ups rules.