Mon, 05 Apr 2004

Beware of Blogger

[Update]

This is an outrage. I can guarantee that I will never suggest to anyone that they use Blogger for anything, as the service is obviously completely untrustworthy and out of control. Here's the comment I left to Blogger:


You're Screwing Around with Identity Theft

Dear Sirs:

A friend formerly had a blog at http://hestia.blogspot.com She removed the blog from your service late last year. She has not posted anything to it since - it's not her account anymore.

It's back up - with her name directly above some porno links, giving the impression that the blog is hers.

This was obviously done to associate the links with her good name in the search engines, and drive traffic/links.

I can understand how the name ("hestia") was made available for reuse after her departure, and would have expected to see another blog at that site at some time. But to allow such an obvious subturfuge to continue is just despicable. You should at least force the current owner to remove the name of the former owner.

As a blogger myself, who's recommended your services to several friends who wished to get into the scene without an investment in service space, I must tell you that such reccommendations will cease immediately. Furthermore, although IANAL, I'm going to advise Kathryn to call one. I think this is a clear case of negligence on your part.

Thank you,
Daithi M Haxton

So, beware of so-called "free" services - you may end up with a lot more than you paid for ...

Update:

Apparently enough of us made a such a stink with Blogger that they resolved the situation, by determining that the new blog violated their terms of service.

/Technology | 0 writebacks | permanent link

comment...

 
Notes: If you put a <mailto:> link in the URL field your address will not be mangled: this could be a bad idea as your email address could be easily harvested by bots designed for SPAM. The comments field should now format correctly for line feeds and carriage returns: when you hit the 'Enter' or 'Return' keys in your comment it should break to a new line. The text should wrap cleanly. Please let me know if it doesn't. No HTML tags will pass through - entering links seems to be the main cause of comment SPAM. Also, please be sure that Javascript is enabled in your browser before attempting to post a writeback. Sorry for any inconvenience, but this really helps cut down on the amount of comment SPAM I have to deal with.
 
 Name:
 URL:(optional)
 Title: (optional)
 Comments:  
Save my Name and URL/Email for next time