Fri
Aug 1 2008
10:48 am
Blogger.com brain fart
By: R. Neal

Tennessee liberal bloggers Left Wing Cracker, Sharon Cobb, and Vibinc, who all use blogger.com/blogspot.com, have been notified that their blogs were flagged as spam and they were locked out.

Sounds pretty suspicious, but apparently it's not limited to Tennessee blogs, or political blogs. According to the Google blogger help forum, there have been a rash of such incidents over the past week or two from all over. My guess is that they unleashed a "new and improved" spam hunting bot and it had a brain fart.

UPDATE: Jack Lail has the offical Google/Blogspot response.
Johnny Ringo's picture

Glenn Reynolds reports on

Submitted by Johnny Ringo on Fri, 2008/08/01 - 11:35am.

Glenn Reynolds reports on his blog today that his wife's "Dr. Helen" blog has been similarly flagged as spam.

gonzone's picture

Well

Submitted by gonzone on Fri, 2008/08/01 - 12:03pm.

At least they got one correctly labeled.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

katie allison granju's picture

This is why I switched to

Submitted by katie allison granju (not verified) on Fri, 2008/08/01 - 11:37am.

This is why I switched to Word Press. I had this happen to me as well - about a year ago.

djuggler's picture

Domain names are cheap! And

Submitted by djuggler on Fri, 2008/08/01 - 7:30pm.

Domain names are cheap! And hosting is inexpensive! And transparently upgradable.

I recommend 1and1.com (disclaimer: That's an affiliate link and I get a couple of dollars if you signup..that's not why I recommend them..I use them and am pleased).

In the world of hosting, you do get what you pay for. So if you go inexpensive and get a lot of traffic you may find yourself having to upgrade. But now, you own the content! And control the content unlike using a third party like Blogger. Since you control the content, upgrading transparently overnight is usually pretty easy.

Do not confuse http://wordpress.com/ with http://wordpress.org/ Wordpess dot COM is just like blogger. It's a third party solution. Wordpress dot ORG is an open source software and Wordpress even provides a free service setting up blogs for non-commercial entities. I will also happily help you get setup on a Wordpress blog. (or Drupal or any of the hundreds of other solutions)

Blogger kicked me off in 2005. I thought I'd lost all kinds of hours of work in posts, drafts, and comments. It almost caused me to quick blogging. With some luck, I was able to recover my content. Blogger refused to communicate with me. Once the flags come, the blog disappears shortly later.

I did manage to acquire the fax number to the blogger office if anyone needs it I should be able to dig it up.

Doug McCaughan
(link...)

JaHu's picture

Do not confuse wordpress.com

Submitted by JaHu on Sun, 2008/08/03 - 10:13pm.

Do not confuse wordpress.com with wordpress.org Wordpess dot COM is just like blogger. It's a third party solution. Wordpress dot ORG is an open source software and Wordpress even provides a free service setting up blogs for non-commercial entities.

I have a boating website and I was using Wordpress open source for my blog. I did a search on google of my website's webblog and this is what I found on the search page

"This site may harm your computer."

When I clicked on the link to the page I received this message:

"Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!
Suggestions:

* Return to the previous page and pick another result.
* Try another search to find what you're looking for.

Or you can continue to ########.com/blog/ at your own risk. For detailed information about the problems we found, visit Google's Safe Browsing diagnostic page for this site.

For more information about how to protect yourself from harmful software online, you can visit StopBadware.org.

If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google's Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center.
Advisory provided by Google"

When I clicked on the "Safe Browsing diagnostic page" I received this message:

"Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for #########.com/blog/

What is the current listing status for ##########.com/blog/?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Google has not visited this site within the past 90 days. Suspicious activity was detected over 90 days ago, but no data is available for the past 90 days.

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, ##############.com/blog/ did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Next steps:

* Return to the previous page.
* If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center."

Could Google be behind this so we will use their diagnostic or site meter software?

I handled it by just deleating the Blog.

pashley's picture

my insurance company's website blocked

Submitted by pashley (not verified) on Fri, 2008/08/01 - 6:43pm.

on msn domains. New software, not quite ready for release.

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