Monday, March 4, 2013

Are we paying attention?

The other night I was going through my reading list of blogs and thought I would check several that seem to have dropped off and out of the blogger world.
As I was checking them I noticed that several of them had turned into spam, and we are not talking about the stuff in the can. As I looked further into these I noticed that the names had not changed and I contacted one of the people who had owned (?) her blog. She was aware of what had happened but here was content not posted by her with some really unpleasant content on her blog using her domain name.
She had deleted this blog when she moved into another format.
My question is how can a deleted blog then be picked up and used by someone who is not connected to this blog and posted to.
And, how does blogger deal with this?
I hunted all over before I reported her blog as abused.
I was sorry that I did not do this for the other blogs that have reappeared as spam.
I can only hope there is a way that these can be stopped.
Does make you wonder when you sign up for a "free" device how you will pay for that in the long run.
Many blogs have been started only to be discarded for other ways to promote or update what you, we, are doing in our lives through the internet world.
I would like to suggest that if you have not check yours do so and be sure to sign out of sites such as Facebook and Blogs when you are not "online".
You just never know who is picking up your information.

On passwords.
I try to change my often and not keep the same one going all the time or use the same one over and over.
If you are using the word password or password1 as your password change it.
There are many ways to come up with creative passwords if you try.
I find that I no longer memorize phone numbers since those passwords are more important.
As your Mamma use to tell you, "safety first". 

March is here.
Work to be done and taxes need to be filed.
Monday March Madness is in full swing.
Cheers.
M
Who is watching?

  

10 comments:

Tracey Broome said...

I have never heard of this! Yikes, big brother is gonna get us, no matter what, I fear :)

Lori Buff said...

I saw this information about Judy's old blog. It's really creepy. It also makes me wonder if this isn't one of the ways the comment spammers attack us. It seems it would save google a lot of money to develop a way to prevent this from happening.

Judy Shreve said...

Thanks for posting this and making more folks aware. Maybe it will help them to take steps to protect themselves.

My web host (bluehost.com) seemed to think people who steal your old blog platform are looking for instant readership and recognition. Most of the time they are from a foreign country and want readers of their blog from the US.

It's still creepy and feels like a giant violation - and maybe not so benign.

I will keep everyone posted about my outcome with Google's legal department.

Dennis Allen said...

Thanks for sharing. This helps explain the surprise I got last week.

smalltownme said...

I hadn't thought of reporting this. In the two cases I've seen, the bloggers had moved on to new blogs. I've been unable to delete the old blogs off my feed.

Claudia from Idiot's Kitchen said...

Ack! I'd never thought of this. I have a wordpress version that I ought to disable or do something with. thanks for the good info!

ang design said...

Its just wrong and google is obviously doing a lame duck on this one... there must be a way to reclaim the blog as your intelectual property... it will take some clever thinking!!

cookingwithgas said...

This is wrong but Google is being very lam in handling the issue.
I put this out since many people use this, me included, and don't know about how your blog is being handled after you delete it.

Amy said...

hmm- great food for thought, thanks!

Linda Starr said...

you'd think if you delete your blog it would be gone, I have an old blog for my lavender gardens, I'll have to check it out, thx.