According to Matt Cutts, the FTC thinks you should clearly mark paid links. If you do clearly mark paid links Google editors will penalize you for buying / selling links, then they will pay an AdSense spammer to steal all your content. Don’t worry though, as Google doesn’t clearly mark their own ads.

Look at how closely timed the above posts were. Why would any webmaster mark their own sites to be penalized and stolen? Clear language is a wonderful thing.

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A federal judge thinks so. He must have been offended every time he was asked about the size of his…attachment. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis called Christopher William Smith, 27, a drug kingpin who sold $24 million in prescription drugs through his Xpress Pharmacy store.

The sentence wasn’t just for spamming, though. Smith was convicted on charges of conspiracy, illegal distribution of drugs, money laundering and operating a continuing criminal enterprise.

He also threatened a witness, and moved to the Dominican Republic with a fake passport.

The police seized 17 cars from him, which he had bought with the ill-gotten gains, for which he should serve an extra five years for tacky conspicuous consumption.

But they don’t put people in prison just for being jerks.

If you think 30 years is rough, just wait until his fellow inmates find out who’s been slowing them down while writing emails to prison groupies. Talk about getting your inbox stuffed.

The article was an interesting read but contained many inaccuracies. I was going to blog about it in detail today but this morning I read these three posts that already explain what is wrong with the article and mirror my sentiments

Elinor Mills Embarasses Self, C|Net with Digg Article

CNet’s story about Digg needs a reality check

CNET Gets it Wrong about Digg Optimization

On a related note I was recently accused of being a Digg spammer.

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Chris Sandberg is an independent internet marketer from who blogs regularly about search marketing and internet business.

“At SES Chris interviewed one search spammer who asked to remain nameless while providing some interesting details about the inner workings of the search spamming world. On one hand the interview reveals some of the motivations for spamming the search engines. More interesting are the search spamming tactics these black hat marketers won’t employ because even they are annoyed by the end result.”

Chris asks what kind of search spam? The search spammer responds by describing massive generated content, as in auto-generated content. How? The spammer explains: Take a dictionary and put in a database and run some application on that to output content according to a certain topic. The words are random with a certain percentage of the target keyword along with quotations, commas and periods thrown in, which fools Google into thinking they are sentences. He runs Google AdSense ads on these content sites and that’s how me makes money.

Chris makes a good point, “So Google enables search spammers by allowing AdSense ads on these types of sites?” Chris then says the same thing with eBay. Big companies tolerate a certain amount of spam because it makes them money.

Chris asks if users are negatively affected by all this search spam. Mr Search Spammer responds that because there is such a high clickthrough rate on the ads being run on the auto generated content sites, that users must be finding what they’re looking for (in the ads).

Search spamming is all about the money. Yet there’s a funny moral justifaction in the interview that is worth hearing. Very amusing and concerning at the same time.

Chris also has a good interview with Danny Sullivan and another with Google’s Matt Cutts during SES NYC worth checking out.

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Lee Odden is President and Founder of
TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog
marketing and online public relations. He’s been cited as a search
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Forty-three year-old Kirk F. Rogers of Manhattan Beach, Calif. will forfeit all earnings made from the spam program and could face a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for June 5th.

Rogers is implicated as part of a larger network that includes Jennifer R. Clason, 32, formerly of Tempe, Ariz.; Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 39, of Venice, Calif.; and James R. Schaffer, 39, of Paradise Valley, Ariz. who were named in a nine-count federal grand jury indictment. Clason, Kilbride, and Shaffer were charged with fraud, criminal conspiracy, and other activities in violation of the CAN-SPAM act. Their trial is set for May 2.

The alleged spammers are accused of littering in-boxes with porn advertisements for commissions earned by traffic to websites.

At the request of Anthony Greco’s defense attorney, the 18-year-old’s sentence on charges related to spamming MySpace members and threatening to share his spam methods was sealed by a federal judge. Prosecutors are expected to request the unsealing of the sentence today.

Greco was at one time contracted by MySpace.com, the social networking web site that recently became part of News Corp after it purchased MySpace parent Intermix. His work with MySpace involved creating a program to send members instant message ads for adult-related and mortgage financing sites, AP reported.

He then created some 27,000 MySpace accounts to send those messages. After that, Greco asked to be hired on as an employee. When that request was ignored, he began issuing threats.

It is possible Greco will serve 18 to 24 months in jail, based on terms of a plea bargain earlier this year. MySpace claims it spent $20,000 deleting junk messages, updating its systems, and handling consumer complaints, but it is not known if they will pursue civil action against Greco.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

He pulls a quote from “Feedster’s” Scott Johnson and his “Conversation with a Blog Spammer.” It’s an excellent of bit of information and editorialization:

Apparently he purchased tools from a company called rssequalizer.com (again no link; no juice) which is a ready made spamming toolkit using RSS to build your sites from other people’s content. And he didn’t know that it was an issue? He couldn’t tell he was a spammer? Sheesh. Give me a break people. I’ve heard this one before from spammers and its always a line.

Just my .02. I’m sorry but Blog Spam is a huge issue for everyone in our business and this kind of stuff has to stop. Yes I took a very, very harsh tone but we have to do this. Getting harsh on spammers is the only way things are going to get better. And I mean I could have been harsher — I could have called for razing his home and sowing salt into the ground but I’m a nice guy. I’ll settle for razing his domains, his IP addresses and his ad sense account.

What the good doctor posted was absolutely true. Most of the industry that blogs and utilizes RSS know their business. They have the ability to control some of this and in some cases by really simple measures. It’s up to the adopters of these mediums to stop their abuse before it becomes even more widespread.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

After tracking down New Hampshire-based spammer Brad Bournival, AOL managed to win a judgment against him. That led to a settlement and the seizure of his prized vehicle, $75,000 in cash, and $20,000 in one-ounce gold bars.

Now that they have the goods, AOL plans to give them away. A contest that started on August 10 and running through August 19 will have daily giveaways of $1,000 cash. The grand prize winner gets the Hummer, $65,000 in cash, and the gold.

AOL has run this kind of promotion before, giving AOL subscribers a chance to win the Porsche Boxter previously owned by another spammer. This contest is open to all eligible entrants; entrants will have a shot at the grand prize, and daily entrants who answer a security-related question get a chance at the $1,000 giveaways.

The SpamKings web site notes that while Mr. Bournival has settled with AOL, his partner Davis Hawke fled after being hit with a $12 million USD judgment against him.

For the first time, someone out there really will be able to MAKE MONEY FA$T thanks to a spam message.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Microsoft says that it will use the money that it has won from the settlement toward efforts to battle spam. Microsoft’s General Counsel, Brad Smith said that about $5 million would be reinvested by Microsoft into further working with law enforcement against computer-related crimes.

“People engage in spam to make money,” said Smith. “We have now proven that we can take one of the most profitable spammers in the world and separate him from his money.

“And I think that sends a powerful message to other people who might be tempted to engage in illegal spam,” added Smith. Brian at Spam Kings blog writes:

“Unfortunately, the outcome of that litigation, along with the AOL spammer’s gold sweepstakes, arguably sends the wrong message — to spammers, anyway.

To be sure, it’s good for Microsoft and AOL to show vigilance about keeping spam out of member in-boxes. AOL in particular can use the sweepstakes stunt to draw attention to its measurable success in the spam wars. And Microsoft definitely deserves credit for its courtroom persistence against the crafty Richter legal team.”

Spam sent from Richter’s businesses totaled over 38 billion emails a year. Richter has agreed to send email only to people who opt-in for it from now on.

Chris is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

The 35-year old Armenian had been killed with a series of repeated blows to the head. According to MosNews, the reviled spammer met his end after bringing home three women from a club.

Allegedly, one of the women placed a soporific drug in Mr. Kushnir’s drink, then summoned accomplices to the apartment to rob it when he fell unconscious. But Mr. Kushnir apparently woke up and fought with the robbers, resulting in his death.

“Things are simpler. He became a victim of clonidine. For now, this is the only theory,” an investigator told the Kommersant newspaper. Clonidine is a soporific drug, and is also known under the brand name Catapres.

Police detained one of the women alleged to have been involved with the crime, but have not yet identified any other suspects to the media.

In another MosNews report, Mr. Kushnir’s murder has been met with little outrage from Russian media outlets. Those outlets seem to contend he got what he deserved, after years of plaguing Russian Internet users with millions of advertisements for his English language companies.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.