Spam Recipes In My Email?

I'm used to getting spam. What I'm not used to is getting spam recipes. That's what GMail has been doing just now. I opened my GMail Inbox and clicked on the Spam folder to clear out my spam. Suddenly, the tiny ad link next to the Inbox turned into a link to a recipe for a "Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole."

It happened a little later as well. I opened my browser again. GMail was already loaded in a tab and opened my Inbox automatically. I had no new email but two messages in my Spam folder, so I clicked on it. Suddenly, the ad changed again, this time to an ad for "Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches" which actually looks like it might be pretty good.

Now that's a pretty curious glitch in Google's ad algorithm that I've never noticed before. Google thinks that you are looking for spam recipes when you go to clear your Spam folder. I have to wonder how many times this happened before I noticed it and how often it happens to other people.

Out of Twitter's Dog House

It seems that my account suspension at Twitter was a short one. I can now tweet again. That was pretty fast. When Blogger thought I was a spammer, I had to fill out a captcha form for months. Of course, I could still post. Anyway, it's an interesting thing to keep in mind with this Web 2.0. You are at the mercy of the company which controls the servers you are using. While this means that they can control spammers more easily. It also means that legitimate users are more likely to get hit by the same hand that slaps down the spammers.

With things like Twitter and blogging, this might not be so important but with GMail? A lot of people swear by their email. A ban can hurt a lot more. Worse yet, my phone's address book synchs to GMail's Contacts. A ban would be terrible for someone who depends on their phone.

Ultimately, the issue of ownership will have to be resolved before Web 2.0 applications can trusted for truly critical uses. If I am blogging, tweeting, and doing all the other crap that we do on the web, I'm generating content. It may be crappy content, it may be useless content, but it is my content and if a company can cut off my access to it, then it's not really my content is it?

Suspended By Twitter

Twitter has been getting a lot of spam lately. I get several emails a night telling me that "X is now following you on Twitter." Half the time, these accounts are obvious spammers. More and more recently, these accounts are being suspended by the time I see them. This seems like a good thing to me as Twitter is clearly clamping down the spam. But they may also be suspending a lot of legtimate accounts. Well, they've suspended my account at least. I have been using Twitter a lot lately, mostly for posting links which I find interesting which don't really merit a long blog post. Apparently this is the sort of behavior which can get you suspended....

Google's CAPTCHA Cracked?

Slashdot reports that spammers are now claiming to have cracked Google's CAPTCHA system. This comes after reports that Microsoft's CAPTCHA system has also been cracked. And here I am always needing two or three tries in order to read Blogger's CAPTCHAs. It's a depressing state of affairs. It is now almost easier for spam-bots to send out penis enlargement ads and get rich quick scams than it is for legitimate users send each other pictures of cats....Now that I think about it, no one will ever notice the difference anyway.

Blogger Thinks I'm a Spammer

Here's a new experience. I was editing an article on my blog today when a CAPTCHA appeared at the bottom of the Blogger editing window. It was accompanied by the following explanation:

Your blog requires word verification

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

Before we can turn off mandatory word verification on your posts we'll need to have a human review your blog and verify that it is not a spam blog. Please fill out the form below to get a review.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

It seems Blogger is taking the news that it is being used to create numerous spam blogs seriously. They have even put up a page explaining what they are doing to fight spam blogs. While I've always found CAPTCHAs annoying and even though spammers are learning to defeat CAPTCHAs, you can hardly blame Blogger for trying to fight spam somehow. I for one wish them well.