A tool for slimeballs: RSS to Blog

Ugh. Read this if you want to feel worms crawling over your skin.

Sometimes I wonder if there might be a way to attack internet scammers of all stripes through prevention -- at the source, in addition to working the reactive angle by coming up with technological countermeasures. The way the system deals with spammers is like an insect elimination method that assumes bugs will come to your garden or house, and the only way to be rid of them is to kill them off once they arrive.

Same goes for internet security, which always makes me suspicious because hackers and security experts often seem to be two sides of the same coin. Maybe there's more money to be made in reactive measures than there is in prevention.

I'm not saying I have any viable prevention ideas, but maybe other people do. The only weapons I know how to use are implements of psychological torture. Like shame. Shame wouldn't work on the supply side -- people like the purveyors of this RSS to Blog software, or the people who make and sell things like scripts that harvest email addresses from web pages. They're shameless, probably beyond redemption.

But the demand side could be worked. Certain buyers of this stuff might be persuaded that there's no honor in making money by ruining the search experience or forcing their messages on people who didn't ask for them. When I was in the PR agency business, my proposal for this would have included working through the "influencers," in this case probably internet marketing experts. Popular marketing site editors, speakers and authors would be approached through email and on the phone with suggestions for including respect for consumers in their teaching. The influencers would be reminded that a high-road message would earn them more respect.