It's true. In recent months my rate of spam on a years-old email address has gone from ten a week to twenty a day. And I blame it all on weblog software.
Since I stopped posting my own articles, I've started posting comments on those of others. Some of these sites offer you a choice: You are allowed to comment if you're willing to provide an email address, or a URL. What they don't tell you is WHY they want that information. Some weblogs send a confirmation note to you, asking to verify that you wanted to post a comment. Others simply send out an acknowledgement.
And still others post your email address to their site. That makes the unwitting armchair commentator into fresh meat for the email address harvesters of the world. Hardly an even trade.
You would think that after all the years that were spent learning how to avoid this very problem with web forums, that a conscientious weblog software writers would know better. Sadly, 'conscientious' and 'programmer' all to often don't appear together.
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
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