since I work in search marketing, I've had clients hire me to help with their online reputation. I don't always take them on as clients (Streisand effect, etc.)
Once in a while, it's much more complicated. I had one client where a competitor hired an agency to post false content all around the web, mostly on sites that stand behind the "we just host it" claim.
Even though my client won the legal battle, the posters had been "an outside agency", and used false profiles. Just to get the first court process done took two years and $100,000.
To actually get a court to direct those sites to remove that content (since the "anonymous John Does" and their "agency" were unreachable) was expected to take at least another two years. And that much more money.
Seriously. It's a major problem.
Sure, I think forcing search engines to take down links is a mostly horrific path, the system is critically broken as it is, and real human lives, livelihoods and reputations are ruined all the time by malicious troll behavior and actions.
Actually that's a false flag claim under various circumstances.
One that comes to mind is if information is posted that is flagrantly false, (as has been claimed in such cases all the time), then it has nothing to do with erasing history. It has every thing to do with restoring credibility where it is rightly due.
Only immature people think "if its on the internet, it must be true, and should become part of history".
Thank you Senator Wyden for taking the time to so clearly and concisely refute the continued lies, deception and twisting of facts coming from people who, while vital to the interests of our country, are obviously drunk with power, ego and arrogance.
Used to freak out knowing I was approaching a red light camera intersection back when I lived in the SF bay area. Then, this year when I made plans to move to Arizona, started reading old blog posts about Redflex and their scammy ways. Total relief when I learned killing off the Redflex Plague there was already a done deal.
Unfettered capitalism. Greed, control, arrogance. This is why some laws are just necessary in a society, even if we want more freedom than we get most of the time.
I audit 60 to 80 sites a year. From the smallest mom-pop to enterprise global sites with hundreds of millions of pages.
The vast majority of sites are owned and maintained by small business owners who don't know what they're doing, and barely can afford to implement fundamental necessities, yet they do so nonetheless, and that allows them to participate in the digital community.
As much as I personally would prefer that every site be set up, maintained and upgraded by qualified professionals, it's not realistic in the current environment.
Worse still, I've seen more than several developers screw up some of what I consider the most fundamental technical changes necessary for a site to function.
Then, in the long term, the vendor might decide to represent non-secure origins in the same way that they represent Bad origins.
Most consumers could well make assumptions (correctly or incorrectly) from how its presented. "WARNING - THIS SITE IS UNSECURE" implies danger.
It wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that many consumers interpret that to be "so dangerous that I should avoid it, without thinking through what this really means in this situation".
As a User Experience professional, I have seen all too often that a majority of end users have a very difficult time applying critical thought to their online decision making process.
So the question here then - does the good outweigh the bad? I say too many site owners who are incapable of adapting will suffer.
I hate social engineering. If a site is informational only, there's absolutely no reason to force it into an HTTPS status. To eventually make it APPEAR that an HTTP site is somehow BAD, or DANGEROUS is a horrific notion.
There are so many perfectly legitimate, valid, helpful and worthy sites that won't go to HTTPS for a plethora of reasons this effort will only hurt more than it helps.
I disagree. If you're not going to allow proper https functionality, the correct best practices functionality should have the https version automatically redirect via 301 server redirect to the non https version.
This ensures that anyone getting to the page will actually get a page.
As someone who audits sites for a living, I can't tell you how sad it is out there. Most site managers / devs who roll out HTTPS make big mistakes.
I've seen it do so much harm it's pathetic. And the bigger the site, the more likely there's a lack of proper QA testing overall long before a site tries to go "all" HTTPS.
"We will make use of whatever technology is available to preserve evidence on cell phones while seeking a warrant, and we will assist our agents in determining when exigent circumstances or another applicable exception to the warrant requirement will permit them to search the phone immediately without a warrant," Canale said. (Canale is from the DOJ)
There you go. Yeah, fine. I read that as meaning "We're going to find ways to help law enforcement get around this"
So as far as I'm concerned, the DOJ still does what it wants and conspires with others to ignore the constitution.
"permanent secretary of the Information and Communications Technology Ministry"
So exactly how permanent is such a position in a country like this? I mean is it "permanent as long as this coup lasts" permanent? Or is it "permanent even if some other group stages a coup later" permanent?
I think before they shut down all social media entirely (because you know - fomenting unrest during such an important period of unrest is wrong), they should be more clear in the titles they issue to people...
I agree. Its a difficult issue for sure. However it definitely emphasizes the concept of proper due diligence. Something seriously lacking in the business world.
oh - forgot to mention credit for the word for word transcript and my being alerted to this goes to an article from Barry Schwartz over at SearchEngineLand
Matt Cutts, head of Googles Search Spam unit stated on the record over on TWIT.TV their intent with the way they are going after spammers:
"If you want to stop spam, the most straight forward way to do it is to deny people money because they care about the money and that should be their end goal. But if you really want to stop spam, it is a little bit mean, but what you want to do, is sort of break their spirits. There are lots of Google algorithms specifically designed to frustrate spammers. Some of the things we do is give people a hint their site will drop and then a week or two later, their site actually does drop. So they get a little bit more frustrated. So hopefully, and we’ve seen this happen, people step away from the dark side and say, you know what, that was so much pain and anguish and frustration, let’s just stay on the high road from now on."
So my position that it IS punishment, in my opinion based on this statement,is correct. Punishment is designed to break people of a bad habit.
ah thanks for the nofollow factor - I totally failed to check to see if they were nofollowed. Proving my "forensic SEO audit" skills aren't always used when I comment on the web. :-)
Okay as an actual SEO professional (one who only advocates real, sustainable SEO, and not crappy spam tactics), I will add this:
1. It IS punishment. Spam has gotten so far out of hand over the years that previous efforts to discourage and otherwise eliminate otherwise undeserving results from the organic listings were not getting the message across. Spam just became a massive business.
So to really send the message across, Google is now much more SEVERELY penalizing sites that use spam tactics, one of which is crappy link techniques. The notion here being that when a site gets a manual penalty for crap links, it becomes a very daunting task to clean up now.
Couple that with most of those sites then needing to re-earn (or in actually earn for the first time in legitimate ways) rankings, and more sites are doing all they can to become good netizens.
2. Leaving spam comments up just to spite foolish site owners is NOT helpful to TechDirt. And it doesn't contribute to punishing those site owners because they'll just disavow the links if you leave them up.
In fact, where it CAN be a problem for TechDirt is if Google's system detects too many spam comments, this site WILL be penalized.
I doubt there are that many on TD, so it's highly unlikely that this scenario would happen (as compared to sites like Mashable or others that have free-for-all comment spam where those are more likely to see some sort of hit).
3. Charging site owners to remove their links is a possible revenue stream, however the overwhelming majority of site owners or link-clean-up providers who encounter a fee situation ignore it and just disavow those links.
And for those site owners who come to me for an audit after they've been penalized, that's exactly what I recommend to them. Along with noting in their tracking of their clean-up those sites that attempted to charge for the service. Because that's potentially subject to being viewed as an extortion scheme under some circumstances (not a TD scenario though either).
(untitled comment)
Where do I sign up to be "John Doe 7"? I'd enjoy being referred to as John Doe #7.
Re: Re: Re:
since I work in search marketing, I've had clients hire me to help with their online reputation. I don't always take them on as clients (Streisand effect, etc.)
Once in a while, it's much more complicated. I had one client where a competitor hired an agency to post false content all around the web, mostly on sites that stand behind the "we just host it" claim.
Even though my client won the legal battle, the posters had been "an outside agency", and used false profiles. Just to get the first court process done took two years and $100,000.
To actually get a court to direct those sites to remove that content (since the "anonymous John Does" and their "agency" were unreachable) was expected to take at least another two years. And that much more money.
Seriously. It's a major problem.
Sure, I think forcing search engines to take down links is a mostly horrific path, the system is critically broken as it is, and real human lives, livelihoods and reputations are ruined all the time by malicious troll behavior and actions.
Re:
Actually that's a false flag claim under various circumstances.
One that comes to mind is if information is posted that is flagrantly false, (as has been claimed in such cases all the time), then it has nothing to do with erasing history. It has every thing to do with restoring credibility where it is rightly due.
Only immature people think "if its on the internet, it must be true, and should become part of history".
Re:
I believe the current statutory guidelines call for "hell freezing over".
(untitled comment)
Thank you Senator Wyden for taking the time to so clearly and concisely refute the continued lies, deception and twisting of facts coming from people who, while vital to the interests of our country, are obviously drunk with power, ego and arrogance.
THIS is why I
(untitled comment)
Used to freak out knowing I was approaching a red light camera intersection back when I lived in the SF bay area. Then, this year when I made plans to move to Arizona, started reading old blog posts about Redflex and their scammy ways. Total relief when I learned killing off the Redflex Plague there was already a done deal.
Unfettered capitalism. Greed, control, arrogance. This is why some laws are just necessary in a society, even if we want more freedom than we get most of the time.
Re: Re:
I audit 60 to 80 sites a year. From the smallest mom-pop to enterprise global sites with hundreds of millions of pages.
The vast majority of sites are owned and maintained by small business owners who don't know what they're doing, and barely can afford to implement fundamental necessities, yet they do so nonetheless, and that allows them to participate in the digital community.
As much as I personally would prefer that every site be set up, maintained and upgraded by qualified professionals, it's not realistic in the current environment.
Worse still, I've seen more than several developers screw up some of what I consider the most fundamental technical changes necessary for a site to function.
Re: Re:
From the original post:
Then, in the long term, the vendor might decide to represent non-secure origins in the same way that they represent Bad origins.
Most consumers could well make assumptions (correctly or incorrectly) from how its presented. "WARNING - THIS SITE IS UNSECURE" implies danger.
It wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that many consumers interpret that to be "so dangerous that I should avoid it, without thinking through what this really means in this situation".
As a User Experience professional, I have seen all too often that a majority of end users have a very difficult time applying critical thought to their online decision making process.
So the question here then - does the good outweigh the bad? I say too many site owners who are incapable of adapting will suffer.
(untitled comment)
I hate social engineering. If a site is informational only, there's absolutely no reason to force it into an HTTPS status. To eventually make it APPEAR that an HTTP site is somehow BAD, or DANGEROUS is a horrific notion.
There are so many perfectly legitimate, valid, helpful and worthy sites that won't go to HTTPS for a plethora of reasons this effort will only hurt more than it helps.
Re: Re: Implementation fails
I disagree. If you're not going to allow proper https functionality, the correct best practices functionality should have the https version automatically redirect via 301 server redirect to the non https version.
This ensures that anyone getting to the page will actually get a page.
Implementation fails
As someone who audits sites for a living, I can't tell you how sad it is out there. Most site managers / devs who roll out HTTPS make big mistakes.
I've seen it do so much harm it's pathetic. And the bigger the site, the more likely there's a lack of proper QA testing overall long before a site tries to go "all" HTTPS.
So this is a perfect example of that.
Re: Simple, pop them in a Faraday cage
I'm cyincal. I take it to mean "We'll just plug a USB device in and scrape the entire contents of the phone before we get a warrant"...
Or of course other situations will be done in the name of national security or some bullshit.
DOJ Horrific Response
Quoted from a CNN article on the ruling:
There you go. Yeah, fine. I read that as meaning "We're going to find ways to help law enforcement get around this"
So as far as I'm concerned, the DOJ still does what it wants and conspires with others to ignore the constitution.
Rumor is true - new announcement from Tesla
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
How permanent is permanent
"permanent secretary of the Information and Communications Technology Ministry"
So exactly how permanent is such a position in a country like this? I mean is it "permanent as long as this coup lasts" permanent? Or is it "permanent even if some other group stages a coup later" permanent?
I think before they shut down all social media entirely (because you know - fomenting unrest during such an important period of unrest is wrong), they should be more clear in the titles they issue to people...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Heh
I agree. Its a difficult issue for sure. However it definitely emphasizes the concept of proper due diligence. Something seriously lacking in the business world.
Re: "We Want To Break Their Spirits"
oh - forgot to mention credit for the word for word transcript and my being alerted to this goes to an article from Barry Schwartz over at SearchEngineLand
"We Want To Break Their Spirits"
Just saw this:
Matt Cutts, head of Googles Search Spam unit stated on the record over on TWIT.TV their intent with the way they are going after spammers:
"If you want to stop spam, the most straight forward way to do it is to deny people money because they care about the money and that should be their end goal. But if you really want to stop spam, it is a little bit mean, but what you want to do, is sort of break their spirits. There are lots of Google algorithms specifically designed to frustrate spammers. Some of the things we do is give people a hint their site will drop and then a week or two later, their site actually does drop. So they get a little bit more frustrated. So hopefully, and we’ve seen this happen, people step away from the dark side and say, you know what, that was so much pain and anguish and frustration, let’s just stay on the high road from now on."
So my position that it IS punishment, in my opinion based on this statement,is correct. Punishment is designed to break people of a bad habit.
Here's the link to the full audio
Re: Re: SEO, Spam and Googles Logic
ah thanks for the nofollow factor - I totally failed to check to see if they were nofollowed. Proving my "forensic SEO audit" skills aren't always used when I comment on the web. :-)
SEO, Spam and Googles Logic
Okay as an actual SEO professional (one who only advocates real, sustainable SEO, and not crappy spam tactics), I will add this:
1. It IS punishment. Spam has gotten so far out of hand over the years that previous efforts to discourage and otherwise eliminate otherwise undeserving results from the organic listings were not getting the message across. Spam just became a massive business.
So to really send the message across, Google is now much more SEVERELY penalizing sites that use spam tactics, one of which is crappy link techniques. The notion here being that when a site gets a manual penalty for crap links, it becomes a very daunting task to clean up now.
Couple that with most of those sites then needing to re-earn (or in actually earn for the first time in legitimate ways) rankings, and more sites are doing all they can to become good netizens.
2. Leaving spam comments up just to spite foolish site owners is NOT helpful to TechDirt. And it doesn't contribute to punishing those site owners because they'll just disavow the links if you leave them up.
In fact, where it CAN be a problem for TechDirt is if Google's system detects too many spam comments, this site WILL be penalized.
I doubt there are that many on TD, so it's highly unlikely that this scenario would happen (as compared to sites like Mashable or others that have free-for-all comment spam where those are more likely to see some sort of hit).
3. Charging site owners to remove their links is a possible revenue stream, however the overwhelming majority of site owners or link-clean-up providers who encounter a fee situation ignore it and just disavow those links.
And for those site owners who come to me for an audit after they've been penalized, that's exactly what I recommend to them. Along with noting in their tracking of their clean-up those sites that attempted to charge for the service. Because that's potentially subject to being viewed as an extortion scheme under some circumstances (not a TD scenario though either).