Spam is the scourge of the internets. It clogs Internet Tubes all over the globe, overloading the trucks that take internets around the world.
And it is directly caused by Google’s PageRank and Adsense systems. They (as well as others, but primarily Google - take a look at any spam farm, and you’ll see prominent Adsense ad blocks) created this mess by enabling individuals to cash in on hijacking innocent websites that have enabled anonymous commenting.
A spammer can sit in his basement, run some scripts to find juicy targets, send out some probes, then unleash hell in the hopes that they will improve the PageRank of their (or their client’s) websites, in an attempt to increase Adsense revenue on those sites.
So, here’s the easy solution. If a website is shown to be associated with spammish activities, the Adsense account is suspended. And their PageRank is reset to 0. Take away the financial incentive, and the rules of the came change.
It’s time for Google to step up and show some corporate responsibility. The whole rel="nofollow" solution is a non-starter, since it only works if we all agree to break the nature of the web in the first place by devaluing all links contributed to a website. It’s not worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Now, how to define “spammish activities” - and, who gets to determine if a spam producer is guilty of that? There could be juries. There could be committees. Heck, it could become a social software tagging exercise, where the intelligence of the hive is harnessed to determine if something is spam or not. spamornot.com? Have an appeals process, to prevent abuse. Have a responsible governance system to ensure effectiveness.
It seems to me that it would be in Google’s best interest to protect the value of PageRank and Adsense. By allowing spam farms to co-opt both systems, they devalue both. By ensuring spammers are removed from the system, we’re left with a more realistic representation of the online advertising ecosystem, with (hopefully) better representation of the actual contributors and participants.
But, this has to stop. Now. It’s only getting worse, and is threatening to smother any semblance of openness left on the web (1.0, 2.0 or beyond).
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D’Arcy,
Right on- although you are skipping e-mail spam- which is also a problem.
Right now Spam Karma and Akismet both can ID spam, and IP’s quite easily- and it should be easy to just shut those servers out- trust me, there aren’t normal sites doing anything like that kind of linking.
But, face it- until the US government deems it a threat to National Security- nothing will happen- even with the chargebacks for click fraud- Google is riding a wave of ignorance selling adwords and has no interest in stemming the flow of cash- or links.
But- I’m right there with you- something needs to be done.
David - the problem with email spam is that there are enough people stupid and greedy enough to click through the obvious (to us) scam messages and proceed to give their bank PIN etc… in the hopes of getting rich off of some Nigerian General offshore bank account. Email spam is different, because it’s basically just social engineering at internet scale.
Blog/comment spam is completely removed from social engineering - the entire market is evolving strictly to game Google’s tools, without human intervention. Actually, these spammers work best when there is no human intervention (moderation blocks much of it).
Google’s in a precarious position. Their $6+ Billion revenue per year is based on advertisers trusting that their ads will be shown on relevant websites, and will be clicked by people who have at least a passing intention of buying their product/service. If Google blows that trust by letting spammers take over both PageRank and Adsense, then the advertisers will not buy in. And Google will collapse. They need to stop this as part of their long term corporate survival strategy, if nothing else.
D’Arcy,
Considering most of the people buying adwords still have no clue what they are doing, I think Google is going to keep quiet. They may have a solution already, but for now, the clicks send a message to advertisers that “Hey, everyone is doing this”- when in fact, most people do not click on sponsored links (stats say around 30% will).
Personally- I only click on adwords when it’s someone I don’t like (pay for killing all the small guys Walmart).
Have you thought about getting Matt Cutt’s take on this?
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
Both e-mail spam and comment spam suck- and cost us time.
Both hurt the basis of trust that is required for the ‘net to function at it’s highest level.
But, you are right- comment spam is more Google’s fault than ours- and they should fix it for their own health.