Another spam blogger
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Yet another user who simply follows each day, although they are deleted each day. It doesn’t appear to be a wordpress hosted site, but I’m sure that I’m not the only one experiencing their daily following. I’m not sure if there’s anything that you can do on your end to prevent this blogger from spam blogging.
I’ve reached out to name.com to complain:
Hi,
I’m having issues with what appears to be a spam blogger from this domain:
I’ve asked them via one of their posts to kindly stop following my blog. Lately, there have been lots of these bloggers, who visit and follow with the express intent of commercial gains. My blog is social, and my about me page clearly states that these types of websites are not allowed. Anyway, my request to them has been ignored, and they return almost daily to follow again. I then reached out to their host location, which is Cloudfare, and that was filled with redirects and spam. I don’t know if you’ve received any other complaints about simplygeeky.net, but their behavior is bordering on stalking.
It’s my hope that you can do something to stop their behavior on WordPress.
Sincerely,
Rob
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Rob, I don’t see them on your follower list currently. Would you be willing to leave them there so we can access a bit more information on our end? Just update us here when they’ve followed again. Thanks!
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Thanks. Please do keep note of the suspicious usernames if you would, too, in case they’re following and then unfollowing on their own.
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They’re back: jsimplygeeky.net
This may be my phone, but none of the space for comments are real. I can’t place an insertion point into them, nor click a gravatar to see who is liking his comments. It appears to be all graphics to appear like a normal blog.
Thanks,
Rob
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Are they unfollowing and re-following daily themselves, or are you removing them each day?
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I’ve been deleting them. I’ve reached out to them once in an effort to stop them, but it appears to have been ineffective.
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I had been deleting them daily, but have let them stay on, per your request on 10/17.
Thanks,
Bob
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Also, there was a comment that got deleted from this thread earlier with a user that had a very offensive username. I’m not sure if that person was associated with the blog in question.
Rob
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In general, I recommend leaving them, don’t delete them.
If you delete them, they’ll just re-subscribe, and it sounds like that notification is the most annoying out of all of this.
Please keep in mind that the _worst_ thing a follower can do is read your site, and since your site is already public, that’s not really that bad of a problem.
We’ll look into this account, but overall just leave them subscribed. :)
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Do you know how they’re finding my blog? I don’t write about anything remotely similar to them, they don’t leave any trace of a visit in either WP stats, or in the plugin “Statcounter”. It seems to be the same MO with this type of blogger. They have nothing to do with what I’m posting, they seem to have a commercial component as part of their blog, and they constantly redate their posts to make it look as though they’re active.
Thanks,
Rob
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Hi Rob –
What their site linked to the account is about does not necessarily reflect personal interests.
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While I agree, this is not an interactive blogger. There’s no comments, just repeated follows.
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I am here to confirm that the particular site that Rob is referencing (https://simplygeeky.net/) is indeed predatory. They follow other blogs obsessively and repeatedly after being removed (repeatedly) and add everyone associated with the pages they stalk. Technically this isn’t a violation of TOS but it is invasive. It is also symptomatic of the sites more concerning, scam-like qualities that do violate TOS.
When an individual interacts with their posts or sections it re-directs (intentionally) to malware. I clicked on one of their blog posts and was immediately redirected to a “spin a wheel to win XYZ”. On another post I was immediately redirected to “you have won an apple iphone!” and it also began opening various tabs and other invasive popups without further interaction.
I replicated this on 3 separate devices, all of which have above standard malware and virus protection that is updated regularly. I did this to ensure my main device wasn’t already experiencing a virus/malware issue unrelated to this site specifically.
The experiment showed the same result across all devices. This site not only contains fake posts and unclickable features, but is designed to infect visitors systems with malware and predatory advertising.
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Removing a follower won’t stop them from re-follow.
As mentioned, as long as your site is publicly accessible, anyone can follow it.
The worst thing a follower can do is read your site, nothing more. While I understand that receiving repeated follow notifications from them is annoying, they only appear to be repeatedly re-following because they are being repeatedly removed as a follower.
We’ll look into what we can do, but for now, to avoid receiving constant follow notifications about them, just stop removing them as a follower. They can’t do any harm by following your site.
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Hey thank you kindly for the prompt reply Macmanx.
I believe you may be missing the point that we’re trying to make here. Rob and I both understand this site can follow us as much as they please and the best way to avoid frustration with that is to simply allow them to linger.
As previously stated we understand this is invasive and annoying but not technically against WordPress TOS.
But the more important issue that hasn’t been yet been adequately addressed by you or other staff is the site containing fake and infectious content.
Do we have to visit their site and click on their malware posts? Of course not.
But should sites be allowed to continue on WordPress that contain predatory malware?
The answer to that question lies in your own Terms of Service.
Under Section 6. General Representation and Warranty
“Will not be used to create, distribute, or enable material that is – or that facilitates or operates in conjunction with – malware, spyware, adware, or other malicious programs or code.”If this is a clear violation of your Terms of Service, is this not grounds for removal?
Can you give us a clearer idea what “we’ll look into what we can do” entails, specifically?
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As mentioned, we’ll look into what we can do.
The site referred to is not hosted here and therefore not subject to our Terms of Service.
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