by Blight Fighter

Google is just one many companies profiting from spreading blight. Pundits make a fairly convincing case that Google Adsense has been the single largest factor driving the creation of Splogs and MFA Webspam. Googles contribution to Virtual Blight goes beyond monetizing bad content for spammy webmasters. Google provides basic infrastructure and add legitimacy to the hordes of Parasitic Marketers who use deceptive and possibly illegal tactics to make money — while leaving a trail of decimated profiles, devalued web real estate and disgusted users.

What’s among the biggest contributor to blight on MySpace? The leagues of sock puppet profiles and automated friend requests that jamb your inbox. Google — the company that stands on a soap box attacking companies for SPAMMING their index to manipulate search results — is selling keyword advertising for software designed to create fake profiles and send SPAM friend request. Check out this screen shot from February 8th, showing 5 different companies paying to advertise a product for “myspace friend bot” whose purpose is to SPAM MySpace users with fake friend requests and manage multiple profiles.

Google is not content to just sell the advertising. Check out the listing for www.AddMyBuddies.com. They use Google Checkout as well, so Google is helping to sell a product with the following “Best in Class Feature”:

• Captcha Bypass, up to 50%
• Works on Unlimited accounts
• Send Hundreds of Friend Requests
• Send Messages
• Post Comments
• Accept Friend Request
• Send Bulletins
• Send Events

Repeat the search for the unambiguously malicious search for myspace bot and again you see Google selling ads. These products blatantly advertises everything you need to SPAM MySpace. Instead of getting your site removed from the index, selling tools to perpetrate SPAM complies with the guidelines for Adwords and Google Checkout. In fairness, Yahoo also advertises for MySpace Friend Bot. MSN, to their credit (or perhaps for lack of advertisers), does not show sponsored results these terms.

A quick trip to the checkout page reveals that Google is not alone in their complicity. The site is powered by Go Daddy and features a Hacker Safe badge by Scan Alert, assuring the user that the site they are buying their Spam Robot from has not been compromised by a hacker.

The fight against blight requires us to hold advertising networks to high standards. It is all of our responsibility to make sure the we do not buy advertising from or sell advertising impressions to sites that whose purpose is to enable SPAM.Google, because both of their market dominance and their moral tone, has a special responsibility.

Tags: friend Bot, Google Spam, MySpace, Spam bot

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Articles, Google, MySpace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.