There was a post not long ago on a spammer forum explaining this "Geocities Redirects Hosting system". It costs a spammer just $100/week to "host" his site on these redirectors, and they have a system that automatically creates and rotates Geocities accounts to meet demand.
Interestingly, they mentioned that Yahoo have started putting ads alongside some of their redirection sides and that they might be profiting from it.
- Guy.
-----Original Message----- From: discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org [mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.surbl.org] On Behalf Of Eric Montr?al Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 17:26 To: Jeff Chan; SURBL Discussion list Subject: Re: [SURBL-Discuss] GeoCities site list
Jeff Chan wrote:
[...]
At the time of writing there are 2,175 live sites in our list, which is a pretty big number. GeoCities remains the #1 spamvertised domain in the spam we receive. What're your directions on how to tackle this phenomenon?
I would recommend forwarding them to abuse@yahoo.com with an explanation of where they came from, etc. Yahoo does read their abuse mail.
That's a waste of time.
They only remove the sites after at least 72H (if at all), well after their 'useful' life.
Their spam support service really rocks !
If you want to see how easy it would be to pre-screen and throw away spammy sites have a look at : http://nospam.mailpeers.net/alive_spammy2.txt
AOL did it, Tripod did it, and spammers moved away.
It's not a technical problem, it's a 'pink contract' problem.
Regards
Eric.
Jeff C.
Don't harm innocent bystanders.
Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Hi!
Interestingly, they mentioned that Yahoo have started putting ads alongside some of their redirection sides and that they might be profiting from it.
Do you really think seeing Geocities in all kinds of public and local blacklists would help them? Dont think its as simple as you put it.
Bye, Raymond.
Raymond Dijkxhoorn wrote:
Hi!
Interestingly, they mentioned that Yahoo have started putting ads alongside some of their redirection sides and that they might be profiting from it.
Do you really think seeing Geocities in all kinds of public and local blacklists would help them? Dont think its as simple as you put it.
And why do you think spammy is using Geocities for ?
They perfectly know no responsible administrator can 'simply' blacklist Geocities.
If blacklisting was an option we would not be discussing the issue.
In my view, the reason they started putting ads on the redirected links is because they know wget is still around the corner. Without ads, they can't claim such actions would result in any financial losses. Now that they have put ads in the redirection, they can sue anyone 'interfering' with the spammy sites.
As the events unfold, Geocities / Yahoo spam support activities will become more clear.
Eric
Bye, Raymond. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.surbl.org http://lists.surbl.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
On Sunday, January 29, 2006, 10:25:16 AM, Eric Montréal wrote:
Raymond Dijkxhoorn wrote:
Hi!
Interestingly, they mentioned that Yahoo have started putting ads alongside some of their redirection sides and that they might be profiting from it.
Do you really think seeing Geocities in all kinds of public and local blacklists would help them? Dont think its as simple as you put it.
And why do you think spammy is using Geocities for ?
They perfectly know no responsible administrator can 'simply' blacklist Geocities.
If blacklisting was an option we would not be discussing the issue.
In my view, the reason they started putting ads on the redirected links is because they know wget is still around the corner. Without ads, they can't claim such actions would result in any financial losses. Now that they have put ads in the redirection, they can sue anyone 'interfering' with the spammy sites.
As the events unfold, Geocities / Yahoo spam support activities will become more clear.
Eric
More likely Yahoo is simply incompetent at detecting and shutting down the sites, even though multiple folks are reporting them.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon
Hanlon's Razor
* Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Jeff C. -- Don't harm innocent bystanders.
-
Eric Montréal -
Guy Rosen -
Jeff Chan -
Raymond Dijkxhoorn