Could Google stop the spam in the Groups?

On May 6, 2:49 pm, Purl Gurl <purlg...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We enjoyed our local Show N Go Car Show today! Hot! Hot!

Funny Cars! Hot Rods! Antiques! Best in the West!

We are hot! We rock! We rattle windows and shoot flames!

<spammer's tripe link snipped>
Be nice or I will not display more photographs.
I have over five-hundred photographs!

Purl Gurl

Are you as tired as I am of annoying garbage like this spam? Let's
solve it!

No, we can't really fix NNTP, but if you are reading these newsgroups
via Google (and I think increasing numbers of people are doing so),
then there is a pretty obvious solution within Google's power. Google
already has an option to "report" a post as spam. That's a good first
step, but as near as I can tell, Google doesn't actually do anything
about those complaints. The spam just sits there annoying people. Even
worse, while the post is sitting there, the spam might be making money
for the spammer--which is the reason the spammer is doing it in the
first place.

My suggestion is that Google make the spam disappear as quickly as
possible--so the spammer gets nothing, people are not annoyed by the
spam, and the value of the newsgroups (which is also value for Google)
will increase.

How? My implementation suggestion is that Google could deal with the
spam very quickly and mostly automatically by tracking who is
complaining. The first time you complain about spam, nothing would
happen automatically, but someone at Google wold take a look at the
complaint and evaluate it. If it's clearly spam, they'd delete the
spam (and search for other copies), but they'd also increment a 'spam-
detected' counter for you as the person who complained. That's not the
only metric of "credibility" available. I think they should also
consider such things as how long you have used that identity, whether
or not you have complained about posts that might or might not be
spam, and maybe some other criteria. However, the basic idea is that
many people will soon establish their personal credibility as "spam
detectors", and then Google can automate that step and respond almost
instantaneously to each complaint from those credible people.

Speaking for myself, I don't really think they should delete the spam
instantly just because someone complains, but they could immediately
remove the suspect post from the indexes based on a credible
complaint. They can check things at their leisure--but the spammer
won't be making any money. Of course, if they find the complaint is
not justified then the person who made the complaint should lose some
of that personal credibility.

The basic idea is to close the window of economic opportunity the
spammers are exploiting. The spammers use their automatic tools to
spew reams of offensive garbage. They care nothing about harassing and
annoying countless numbers of people--as long as they find one person
stupid enough to send them some money. If only the window could be
closed instantly, then the spammers would never get any of that money.
(Yes, eliminating all spam is obviously an impossible dream--but I
think Google could do a much better job of it.)

If you are reading via Google and if you agree that this is plausible
idea to fight spam, then I encourage you to do three things:

1. Use the complain option in Google Groups to complain about these
spam posts

2. Include something like this suggestion in the body of your
complaint. (Google has a place for comments in the complaint form.)

3. Sometimes (but not too often, please), add something like this
suggestion as a response to spam posts--but if you do so, please be
sure to obliterate the spammers' advertising. You'll notice that I
only left enough of the original post to make it clear how spammy it
was.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Summer of Code 2008
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  • Re: SPAMmers getting smarter
    ... Some malignant agent has sent out a SPAM e-mail to ... the proliferation of SPAM emails on RMIM. ... valid RMIM discussion topics to the 2nd or 3rd page of Google groups ... option because most spammers use generated ids and keeps generating ...
    (rec.music.indian.misc)
  • Re: moronic crap
    ... There is an argument that turning these spam posts into purported "dialogues" do nothing but keep them visible longer and serve the purpose of making them appear to be substantive debates on these topics. ... Additionally anyone responding to an initial spam-drop exactly doubles it's potential readership by quoting the entire thing and circulating, again, to all the unrelated topics to which it is cross-posted. ... I'd suggest carefully checking the headers of the initial spam (unless you're using google where they intentionally make this difficult), ascertaining the server. ... If you want to attempt stop such spam you could email them with your complaint. ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz)
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