Spam in Disguise

Jimbob1989 · Dec 16, 2004

I recently found this posted on The Admin Zone.

A member of my forum recently brought to our attention that in an attempt to generate word of mouth interest in its programming, CourtTV is deploying spammers to register at forums, open threads about CTV programs (both current and upcoming) and then disappear. I personally know the admins of at least 2 boards (IIDB and Loudmouth) which have been tageted in such a manner who are registered here on The Admin Zone and thought it important to alert the admin community to this insiduous forum of advertising known as "viral marketing".

A quick Google search on the handles used turns up literally hundreds of identical posts on all kinds of forums. Here are a few examples I've come across in my own perusal and from Google searches:

IIDB
Loudmouth
Police World
It's All Politics
The Rock Forum
Do It Yourself
The Water Fountain.

There are thousands more. I find this particularly insulting because people actually get fooled into engaging the OP when he's really just a pure spammer. I and several others have posted about this on the CourtTV board only to have the threads deleted without explanation and the OPs banned.

I believe these kinds of posts present a genuine danger to forum interaction. If this methodology becomes popular, how will we be able to protect our forums from turning into spam pits of dead-end OPs? I don't like the idea of my members or my bandwidth being played for fools and used by marketing gurus with no interest whatsoever in the community or anything else but lining their own and their clients' pockets.

Pardon the fuming, but this displeases me greatly. Anyway, just an FYI to all the board admins out there: any newbies posting about CourtTV cannot be trusted. Sad but true.
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Spam in Disguise

Jimbob1989 Registered Member

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Spam in Disguise

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