Results tagged “spam”

The BBC have a serious online presence which probably costs them a fortune to maintain every year.

None of the Irish political parties have an online presence that comes anywhere near it (and you wouldn't really expect them to either... )

But when an Irish political party blatantly rips off the BBC's design and thinks they can get away with it, what kind of message does that send?

They then try to cover their tracks, but obviously don't do a particularly convincing job of it.

Now the thing that leaves me practically speechless is the attitude of the politicos that emanates from their comments on both of Steph's posts:

Get over it Steph. The site is brilliant. Its really is superb. Its online, it works, and its not going anywhere.

As a matter of fact, the site online now, was ready to go last week, the .org site up yesterday was a bit of a teaser based on some very early work.

I think its great. Don't think anybody else other than yourself and Dave Cochrane of p.ie are even the slightest bit bothered. My two cents, appreciate a brilliant website when you see it!

So the message is what exactly?

(Irish) Political parties don't have to abide by copyright rules?

As I already learnt, they seem to think that they can abuse email without any censure, so why would design or any other intellectual property matter?

Of course the funny thing is that they don't do a particulary good job of protecting their own IP.

Both finegael.tel and fiannafail.tel are registered to the same person.. I somehow doubt if that person has any links to either party and most certainly not both ...

Remember Bido spamming people on DNForum?

Well they've also decided it would be a "good idea" to spam bloggers asking for a review.

*sigh*

I get a lot of email to both my personal and work email addresses every single day, so sometimes I don't spot an email immediately. Since it's a Saturday I decided I'd go back over some of the less important emails I'd received over the last couple of days when I came across this really stupid email from Bido:

My name is Andrew Laskaris with Bido.com - the one-domain-per-day Social Auction Platform. I'd like to take a moment to let you know that Bido is back!  We took a technical hiatus for the past few months to rebuild our architecture, and we're finally returning auctions with a big splash.  I'd like to get you to visit our site and perhaps post a review on your blog about our Social Auction service.

Check out our site of course, but here are some pointers about Bido to get you started:
Mainly we are trying to relay the image to people that we are a Social Auction platform, so that should certainly get a mention. More on this later.
We also feature Trackbacks so we give incentive for bloggers to link to us, as we will give a permanent link back.
We're also happy to announce that we will be soon opening the Bido platform to extend beyond domain names, it's a Social Auction platform that can be used in almost any industry, such as classic cars for example. More on this later.
Expert Members get many benefits of participation, details below, along with some more info and strong points of Bido to help you understand what we do, who we are, the vision, how the site works, etc.

Bido was founded on the principal that the domain name industry needs change and we expect the revolutionary means in which auctions are conducted online will contribute to this change.

Bido.com is focused on auctions in the domain name industry.  Domains names are equivalent to online real estate, and getting a good name these days is hard.  A number of companies have sprung up with made-up names or unique names that leave out vowels, such as flickr.com.  This is because they cannot register regular domains as they have all been gobbled up long ago. 

Bido.com focuses on one good domain name a day, so people both within the domain name industry and outside the domain name industry have a chance to acquire great domains at fair market value via our auction.

The one domain a day auction allows a lot of people to focus on the value of one domain, instead of having to search through thousands of domain listings to find a domain they may or may not want.

We pick one domain from thousands of submissions we receive on a weekly basis.  We write a description about the domain's potential uses, find videos that correspond with that domain to try to visualize our description, and then we market the domain the domain around to our contacts, partners, and end-users identified as possessing an interest in the domain at hand.  The auction lasts one hour and starts at 1:00PM EST. The starting price is always $1.00.

Members submit domains with no reserve and let the market determine the final selling price, while the Bido team ensures the technology and brand are there to ensure the maximum sale price that the market will bear.

The type of format we use for auctions is unique, as is the platform and technology we use to push the domain names up for auction.

We have built our own, proprietary "push technology." The technology allows us to push all of the bidding prices, the bidding history, high bidder status, and other information directly to the user - without requiring the user to refresh his Web page. All information is updated in real time and no action is needed from the user - as far as domain auctions go, this is completely unique.

Bido uses trackbacks so if you link to an auction, we will detect it and send a linkback from our trackback system. Each linkback is admin-approved, so if you don't see it right away, give it a little bit of time for Bido to review the link and approve the linkback. The linkback will appear just above the array of Expert Commentaries.
This is an incentive for bloggers to get benefits from participating. The linkback is a reciprocal link from the Bido.com site and will help the blog gain more weight in the search engines.

Being an expert member helps the person to build their brand, market their name, gain exposure and recognition in the industry.
Who are Bido.com Experts:

    * Direct navigation experts
    * Domain name development experts
    * Domain name investors
    * Search engine optimization experts
    * Brand managers
    * Marketing executives
    * And some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the business world today.

Benefits of being an Expert Member:

    * Expert reviews on Bido.com will be viewed by thousands of people everyday providing increased recognition for yourself and your company.
    * Being featured on one of the most popular domain name auction websites in the world will increase your credibility and standing in the domain community.
    * Bido.com will keep a history of every auction so you can refer to your comments for years to come. Search engines will also index your comments further strengthening your web presence.
    * Your profile will give users the ability to communicate with you directly and allow you to highlight your personal and professional interests. In exchange for contributing your time and domain knowledge, Bido.com will help you connect with new clients and build your own business.

The Bido platform is much more than domain name auctions, however.
Soon we will open the Bido platform and let other people operate their own auction channel.
The Social Auction Platform can be used in a plethora of industries.

So these are some key points about Bido, to give you an overview of the platform. In your review, if you would like to link to a specific auction URL, we will approve a link back to your blog. It takes approximately an hour for that link on our site to go live.

Your readers will certainly applaud you for identifying Bido as a site of interest to them.

Also, we have a Facebook group we would like you to join:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51023537523
We have a LinkedIn group as well:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1171027
And if you would like to follow us on Twitter, this is our profile link:
http://twitter.com/bidodotcom

We can expand upon this later if you need additional information. Feel free to give me a call at 800-611-Bido if you have any questions and you would like to speak with me. Thanks for your attention and I look forward to reading and hearing your thoughts. Please send me a link to your blog post should you decide to do a writeup on us. 

Best regards,
Andrew Laskaris
www.Bido.com               

Idiots!
Why do I get the distinct impression that the Bido spammers are not going to stop spamming any time soon?

So now the question is whether I should email the spammers to give them links to my blog posts about them, or if they have any semblance of a clue (doubtful, admittedly) maybe I'll just wait until they find them by themselves ...

Spammers annoy the life out of me.

Lazy and ignorant they always seem to find some way of "explaining" their (mis)behaviour

Bido, who are relaunching this week, thought it would be a great idea to spam the entire membership of DNForum

Grr!

I hate spam.

It's a tactic used by lazy uninventive scumbags.

I don't like politicians that much and consider most of them to be seriously overpaid.


So when I got hit with a spam from the Irish Green Party today to my personal email address I saw red.


Here's the spam itself (screenshot with personal details removed):





I love the way they wanted to "be sure" that I got their unsolicited junk.

I am not interested in the Green Party. I have never expressed any interest in them. I have not asked to be added to any of their mailing lists, so why the hell are they sending me this rubbish?

Funnily enough the contact details on their website include one for data protection - its' as if they were expecting a backlash from their spamming:




Well done Green Party - any chance of ever getting a vote from me is gone!

Morons!

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• eircom Golden Spider Awards spamming again

I recently acquired a webmaster discussion forum that had been semi-dormant for a period of time ie. it was like a wild garden where the weeds had been left unattended.

Looking back over the archives you can see that it once was quite a vibrant community, but that after the founder left to move onto other projects, or possibly a more demanding dayjob, the quality of the site declined.

Rebuilding a community on a site like that is not an easy job and I don't expect to see tangible results for quite some time.

Over the last year or so the forum had been attacked by a lot of spammers who were posting content that drove away potentially valuable members of the community.

After moving the site and its contents to a server I controlled the first job was upgrading the forum software to the most recent version. While Vbulletin has a pretty good security track record I wouldn't like to leave an old version "in the wild" for too long, as there are plenty of nasty little hacks that people can try.

The next thing was to install VBSeo, which is a very nice plugin for vbulletin. It helps with making "pretty" URLs and rejigs a lot of the other parts of a site's display to make it that bit more attractive to search engine spiders.

Over the next few weeks I expect there will be quite a bit of work to be done in trying to attract new members and retain them, but it can be worth the effort. (At least I hope so!)

Another thing that will be addressed, of course, is the site's look and feel.

Personally I can't stand graphic heavy forums with loads of flashing icons etc., I'm much happier with a clean and simple look and feel. James from ForbairtMedia has been working on tweaking the site's layout and design and given it a nice new logo - nothing crazy, but something quite simple and elegant.

The next big job is to see about regaining the search engines' trust of the site. The amount of spammy junk that was there would have led to the site being heavily penalised and judging by the lack of longtail referrals my suspicions are that the site wasn't being taken seriously by the likes of Google et al.

If anyone has any experience of rebuilding a community and would like to lend a hand please let me know :)

I've made a minor change to my comment policy.

As of today comments will remain open on posts for 300 days.

It was previously set at 180 days.

I have little or no patience for spammers, as most people know.

Since I run several sites that deal with domains and the internet industry in general I seem to have been targetted by TodayNic's comment and forum spammers. Over the past year or so I've had to remove multiple spam comment attacks from several sites.

It's annoying. Very annoying.

However it's even more annoying when they have the gall to demand that I remove a post I made last year about their spam.

Considering they're still spamming from what I've seen in the last few weeks I can think of no good reason to remove any posts where I've referred to Todaynic's spam.

Someone claiming to be "Chris" from Todaynic left  a comment on another one of my blogs at around 3am this morning.

Anyone who randomly sends forwards me .doc press releases without even making an effort to personalise the email stands zero chance of getting a favourable mention from me ever.

It's not terribly hard to use some mailing software to send out press releases.

Why do people presume that everyone uses Word?

How hard would it be to actually address an email to me personally? Is that too much of a challenge?

It's not terribly hard to send email - thousands of spammers manage it, don't they?

So why on earth can't someone send a press release properly?

And since Donncha has already "named and shamed", I will too.

Ifoods.tv - you really need to get a clue.

It's not a matter of web2.0 vs web 1.0 or anything like that. It's simply a matter of using, as we say in Cork, a bit of "cop on".

You may have been nominated for an award, but it obviously wasn't in marketing or email usage based on the rubbish you sent me today and the way you sent it.

Don't you just love dumb spammers?

itext.ie seem to fit neatly into that group.

Their bulk unsolicited email this afternoon checks all the boxes for spam of the worst kind.

• spammy subject line - check
• html email with bad use of colour - check
• zero personalisation - check
  
• no unsubscribe options - check
• no explanation of why email sent - check
• non-compliance with EU directives on email - check

Yes, itext.ie are real geniuses

The email looks like a viagra spam or similar to be honest, so I wonder how successful it will be

In order to preserve what little sanity I have left I've changed the way comments are handled on here slightly.

Since comment and trackback spammers seem to target old posts I've decided to automatically close comments on posts that are 6 months old or older.

The old posts that were attracting the odd comment were mainly to do with older versions of Ubuntu etc., so there's not much point in accepting new comments since the software has changed in the last couple of years.

The other reason why I'm doing this is because I made a boo boo the other day and turned up the spam checking a little too high. This meant that I may have blocked several legitimate comments and had to spend a couple of hours trawling through about 20k+ worth of spam comments to rescue them.

I'll update the comment policy of the site shortly to reflect the new "regime"