Web 2.0 Communities
Bots and automated systems threaten the core business model of social networks and Web 2.0 communities. These sites are predicated on the idea that users and their interactions, not third-party content generators, make up the value of the site. Bot interactions such as inappropriate or commercial posts, blog spam, “sock puppets” that dominate conversation, automated voting that biases polls and cheats at contests, false “friending” and the like, displace valued content, destroy trust, and drive users away. Hosts are left with a dilemma: security features meant to block artificial traffic, like captchas, passwords, and isolated environments, also keep out legitimate users. Better security usually means a worse user experience and fewer users.
Social networking bots that are designed to create accounts, build profiles and pages, collect user information, create virtual “friendships” are readily available online for MySpace, YouTube, Friendster, Hi5, TagWorld, Bebo and Tagged. Some sites advertise more than 30 different MySpace Bots and offer their own affiliate program.
In fact, many of these bots are advertised in Google and sold through Google Checkout.
