Spam Talk

After receiving a bit of comment spam I hunted down the hosting company of the offending party and asked that their account be suspended, since that’s the penalty set forth for spam by the host’s acceptable use policy. The host apparently complied, since the spammers site was shortly taken offline. Not surprisingly, the spammer didn’t like that very much.

He sent me a little love note.

If you accuse me personally of Spamming your web site again, without evidence, and where you invite replies anyway (please tell me how “Good point!” is spamming when you have a form on your site inviting comments). You will find I will have your own web site account terminated / blocked by your upstream providers. And, if I can see you have more money than manners / class, I shall gladly relieve you of some for defamation too.

Do I make myself clear?

[signed —]

Now normally I would just ignore this sort of rubbish, but the spammer copied his ISP on the email so for some reason I felt compelled to respond.

Normally, I just ignore such blustering responses, but you asked “please tell me how ‘Good point!’ is spamming when you have a form on your site inviting comments,” I’ll explain it.

Posting an email address in a public place is not an invitation for companies to send unsolicited advertisements. Hosting a public Web forum or Usenet server does not give companies permission or the moral right to advertise on it. And soliciting comments from the public on a weblog entry or other Web page does not mean that companies or individuals are invited to use it for their advertising purposes.

Your comment WAS an advertisement. Using the word “Viagra” as your name and linking that to your Viagra Web site is clearly intended to advertise Viagra and to increase your search engine rankings under that term. Unless your name is actually “Viagra.”

That advertisement has been repeated across the Web. It is substantially the same comment everywhere it is posted. You can find evidence of that at http://www.google.com/search?q=link:xxxxxxxxxx.com and http://www.google.com/search?q=%22xxxxxxxxxxx.%2Bcom%22+comment

It’s commercial, it’s posted in places it is not wanted, and it is repeated. By any common definition of the term, it is spam. In fact, it’s even spam by most legal definitions of the term.

Want further evidence that the comment was intended as spam? You spent a grand total of four seconds on my site before submitting your comment…

217.xxx.xxx.xxx - - [06/Nov/2003:18:40:15 -0800] “GET /2003/09/comment_spam/ HTTP/1.1” 200 40273 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; MSNIA; Windows 98; DigExt)”
217.xxx.xxx.xxx - - [06/Nov/2003:18:40:19 -0800] “POST /cgi-bin/mt/fbda07e9fd3bb656bbf62c5b0ed6480e.cgi HTTP/1.1” 302 5 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; MSNIA; Windows 98; DigExt)”

Unless you possess magical powers, you didn’t read the article and post a comment in the span of four seconds.

Since you also confirm below that you did indeed place the advertisement on my site, you have no libel case. It is impossible to defame by telling the truth.

Spam won’t be tolerated by bloggers. Go find somewhere else to peddle your wares. If you continue to spam comment forms you will find it to be an unprofitable venture. Each time you do, someone like me will complain to your hosting provider, the people that provide them with bandwidth, your ISP, and the companies that supply your products. I’m certain that none of them are interested in being associated with spam. So do yourself a favor and go away.

I replied to your comments because you asked me to (“please tell me…”). In case it isn’t abundantly clear, I’m not asking you to respond. Quite the opposite. I don’t have any desire to hear from you ever again.

I’ve removed all the information that might identify this individual, since there’s really no point in including it. Doing so might be considered harassment, and I don’t really want to go down that road.

Since I’ve already tracked down his ISP, his hosting company, their upstream providers, and the pharmacy that supplies the Viagra he sells, I’ll watch to see if he spams again. Not to mention the fact that Pfizer would probably be interested in his domain name since it uses their trademarks in ways that might make a consumer think that the site is owned or endorsed by them.

Update (Nov 9): Despite the fact that I asked him no to, the spammer replied again, once again copying his ISP.

Listen Hate / Bone for Brains

I have already stated I did not post the comment. What proof do you have? Your own need to hate? The person that posted that message is in Spain, do you know where I am?

You have committed defamation.

FYI, it was probably a competitor of mine (am sure I know who it is, but without proof, unlike you, I will not say). Work it out you nasty little boy. Why would anyone post their own message on a Spam hate page?

I did not read your pathetic text as it is meanigless, just about your own wishes, not law.

Now get a life and stop your acts or you will lose your web site. Go on, try me.

[signed —]

Replying at this point would probably be counter-productive. I’ve already shown his ISP that he’s an ass; jumping into a flame war would only serve to show that I’m an ass as well.

Blaming his competitors for trying to increase his Google ranking is an interesting tactic. While it’s true that the IP address used to post the spam was located in Spain and he is located elsewhere, that’s a tenous defense at best. The IP address traceroutes to Spain and belongs to a Dutch ISP. The spammer is sending email from a network in Australia though two different mail servers (one for each email he’s sent) in Thailand using an email account from a British ISP. So using multiple networks is routine for him, as it is for most spammers.

Add to that the fact that other guestbooks, forums, and blogs have been spammed with this same URL, and many of those spams came from an IP address that is registered in Australia and traceroutes to Thailand.

And his site proclaims that it’s not safe to buy Viagra from companies located outside the US.