Michael Gracie

The blogging community has been under heat for its favorable position in search results. The talk has been to segregate blogs from other results, and some search engines have already taken this approach. Bloggers have cried foul, saying such a practice will kill their traffic. All the while, the major search engines have huddled together, promoting initiatives such as rel=”no follow” in hopes to stem the tide of comment and trackback spam, while the bloggers push back, saying the search engines should fix their own problems.

Each side has its valid points. Unfortunately, the latest “scam” involving them all is going to leave black eyes on all parties, and I suspect the little guys (the bloggers, that is), are going to take the brunt of the blame if mainstream journalists have their way with the spin.

Yes, I am talking about the Wordpress “scandal.”
Read more »

Brian McWilliams has put together a book suitable for shelving next to The DaVinci Code and the Bat Book, with Spam Kings – The Real Story Behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and @*#?% Enlargements.
Read more »

The Associated Press, along with every other news agency, was today reporting the massive intelligence failure regarding BBBs (thats BIG BAD BOMBS for everyone, like me, who is sick and fricken tired of hearing “WMD” over and over and over).

What a shocking, late breaking, scoop filled piece of news that was!

Meanwhile later today, that northeastern bastion of conservative journalism called The Boston Globe ran another story about the substance behind what the dummies did know, which makes me believe that our government leaders are either teasing-prone children who just can’t keep a secret, or they still don’t know anything.
Read more »

Paul Murphy over at CIO Today put together an interesting piece on the ubiquity of authentication, the jurisdictional and timing issues involved with nabbing phishers, and some of the underlying reasons why the powers that be don’t just stop the problem in its tracks. But hope is on the horizon, from an unlikely source.
Read more »

Diet patch seller Phoenix Avatar settled charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it violated CAN-SPAM and the FTC Act. The consequences, however, would lead any spammer to believe that CAN-SPAM violations are a bit of a joke.
Read more »

MCI has upgraded their managed email services for business to include anti-spam and anti-virus enhancements, as well content control measures for both inbound and outbound traffic. This is likely a response to Symantec’s recent jump into the managed email space, and Spamroll will be looking for reviews from the “outside world” on both.

Meanwhile..
Read more »

For those who think they are too smart to get nabbed by a phishing attempt, here is a little test you can take to see how skeptical you really are: MailFrontier Phishing IQ Test.

While the test is designed for UK email users (the bank examples include Barclays and the like), in our global economy, this is clearly applicable to everyone.

Call me crazy, but isn’t Iowa a little late to the game? The recent legislation includes making it illegal to send spam, as well as steal personal information about computer users. I don’t get it, so I will just shut up.

No, wait. I hope they don’t think spyware is something James Bond wears [spywear].

Read Sioux City Journal: House passes new laws against computer crimes for more (you’ll get the James Bond goof then too).

A recent article from Slate outlines the differences between European and American’s use of email. There are some interesting insights within.
Read more »

I have often wondered what would happen when the two mentalities collided. On one hand you have the VCs, with rolodexes a mile deep, including direct lines to the best bankers. Any of the Sand Hill Road crowd will do. On the other, you have the scrappy entrepreneurial types, very creative and driven, and often with a little cashola of their own, garnered from previous deals. Guys like Mark Fletcher, founder of Bloglines, come to mind. Then you throw Google’s rejection of the status quo into the mix, with their dutch auction IPO, and you are left with an interesting dynamic.

Is the venture funded deal becoming a thing of the past? I wonder.
Read more »