Thursday, July 28, 2005
Blog Comment Spam
I had to delete my first ever blog comment spam. I guess its an eventuality, now that my page is being spidered by Google because of my participation in the adSense program.
And honestly, Spam of any kind is all kinds of annoying. I don't mind deleting comments from arrogant half-wits who feel the need to spew hate and contempt at 7:30am when they've only been up for an hour. Spam is just so unoriginal. Its the principal that ads don't even need to be targeted if the audience is large enough. Which, while that's apparently true for email spam, I would argue isn't true for the web -- otherwise Google's adSense program wouldn't be considered such a good idea. Targeted, cost effect, in-obtrusive advertising.
The real question is will the spammers win? Will we end up with a Whitelist based solution to authenticate email, or will we end up using some proprietary standard because the issue of delivering a solution that gives business what it wants (accurate, cost-effective to implement, secure, well documented, and again, cheap).
Its a real problem, one that needs a solution. So naturally, a lot of companies
are trying to solve the problem, because if they can establish themselves as a de facto standard it means serious revenue from everyone in e-commerce. And because everyone's concerned about a monopolist controlling a standard, it makes sense that whatever the solution, it be open source.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the next direction of Google's enterprise hardware like the Google Mini: After all, Google's changed how a lot of people perceive desktop search, email, and even how people perceived web software. (Others would argue that eBay changed the way people looked at how software could be developed.)
And Gmail has got the best spam filter out there. Why not build an appliance that could be used to build a corporate webmail that features all of Gmail's goodies, but also adds things to the enterprise that business wants: Encryption, employee monitoring, auto deletion of records after 90 days, and migratibility.
While a lot of Fortune 500 companies probably have already gone the SAP or Microsoft route for their IT infrastructure, a lot of Fortune 1000 companies would be willing to switch to Google before they find themselves chained to one vendor or another, and overwhelmed by spam.
And honestly, Spam of any kind is all kinds of annoying. I don't mind deleting comments from arrogant half-wits who feel the need to spew hate and contempt at 7:30am when they've only been up for an hour. Spam is just so unoriginal. Its the principal that ads don't even need to be targeted if the audience is large enough. Which, while that's apparently true for email spam, I would argue isn't true for the web -- otherwise Google's adSense program wouldn't be considered such a good idea. Targeted, cost effect, in-obtrusive advertising.
The real question is will the spammers win? Will we end up with a Whitelist based solution to authenticate email, or will we end up using some proprietary standard because the issue of delivering a solution that gives business what it wants (accurate, cost-effective to implement, secure, well documented, and again, cheap).
Its a real problem, one that needs a solution. So naturally, a lot of companies
are trying to solve the problem, because if they can establish themselves as a de facto standard it means serious revenue from everyone in e-commerce. And because everyone's concerned about a monopolist controlling a standard, it makes sense that whatever the solution, it be open source.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the next direction of Google's enterprise hardware like the Google Mini: After all, Google's changed how a lot of people perceive desktop search, email, and even how people perceived web software. (Others would argue that eBay changed the way people looked at how software could be developed.)
And Gmail has got the best spam filter out there. Why not build an appliance that could be used to build a corporate webmail that features all of Gmail's goodies, but also adds things to the enterprise that business wants: Encryption, employee monitoring, auto deletion of records after 90 days, and migratibility.
While a lot of Fortune 500 companies probably have already gone the SAP or Microsoft route for their IT infrastructure, a lot of Fortune 1000 companies would be willing to switch to Google before they find themselves chained to one vendor or another, and overwhelmed by spam.
