Filed under: Fraud, Truston

Comments

Jai on Sep 10, 2006

Hi Tom, I apologize for utlizing your content inappropiately. I would like to make clear that in this case Jarrod had nothing to do with it as I was only using the company's registration account which I work for. I was under the impression that publishing a 40 word excerpt of your material would not violate your publishing terms and could even help drive some traffic to your site. Again I apologize for the inconvenience and I'll make sure not to publish your material again.

Jai on Sep 10, 2006

Technorati does something similar, I wouldn't think they'd be breaching your terms.
http://www.technorati.com/search/%22Three%20new%20identity%20theft%20schemes%20using%20the%20phone%22

Tom Fragala on Sep 10, 2006

Thanks for agreeing not to utilize the content without clear attribution.

Actually what Technorati does is very different. Your splog was ripping content from my feed and putting it into your Wordpress blog as without ATTRIBUTION. And it is clearly a spam blog. And links from spam blogs don't help me one bit--Technorati and other search engines are smart enough to sniff them out and ignore them.

Generally, a brief excerpt WITH ATTRIBUTION and a link would be fair use and not a copyright violation.

However, if you read the Wordpress TOS, it seems you are in violation of it. But that isn't my problem:

"the Content is not spam, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);"

Thanks for the response Jai. I appreciate it.

Tom Fragala on Sep 10, 2006

Actually I am wrong about Wordpress. Your blog wasn't hosted there apparently, it just uses their software on your own servers.

Tom Fragala on Sep 10, 2006

It appears I am not the first victim of these guys. Readers, see this link complaining about the SAME THING I am: http://robgarrett.com/cs/blogs/rant/archive/2006/08/05/2153.aspx

Rob Garrett on Sep 10, 2006

Glad I'm not the only one that has been affected by Mr. Hunt's little game. It really infuriates me when I see someone taking credit for all the hard work I put into some of my articles.

Oh well, what with your post and my rant post on my site we're at least hurting his reputation.

Keep up the good work.

Rob.

Jarrod Hunt on Sep 10, 2006

Tom,

I have looked into the sites that Jai is building and I don't see them as being as evil as you are portraying them to be.

Credit is being given back in the form of a link right back to the source of every post. Jai did not hide the link or claim anywhere that he wrote it.

In most cases there are less then 40 words per post that are cited. Many sites pull much more then that. Technorati pulled 90 words from the same post. Technorati pulls data from billions of sites, in the exact same way.

Every Feed Search engine on the planet does the same thing we are doing. We do not hide the fact where we get the data.

With that being said Jai now understands that it is also good practice to include the site name on every post. He is going back through and changing past posts now.

I would sincerly appreciate if you would remove my name or tone down your accusations a bit. I understand if you feel the need to vent, but calling me a thief is both damaging and incorrect.

I hope you see that a lesson has been learned and that there is no need to be unreasonable.

=================

Jarrod,

Thanks for the followup. Here's the issues I have.

1) Your splog isn't linking to my blog. It links to my Feedburner RSS feed URL. Which is a clever way to avoid detection, since if a visitor clicks on the link it appears they came from my RSS feed not your splog. Very slick. Except only a spam blog would do that, no human being EVER would. The fact that your blog does that makes its intent clear.

2) "Every Feed Search engine on the planet" does NOT do what your splog does. I mean, that's an astounding claim to make. Your splog isn't fair use. The splog always rips the titles verbtaim and a subset of the content unchanged. Nothing added. And it is a clear attempt to appear to be an original blog, written by someone called Charlie. In fact, you even have a little blurb "I'm a very hard working professional who works long hours and enjoys nothing but fun when NOT at work." It's obvious that's a programmed splog, though. I've been blogging since Feb 2004.

3) I have not seen any material changes to that splog after all this back and forth. That speaks volumes to me.

4) All I ask is that you have Jai, or whoever, write some code to not use my blog(s). That's pretty straightforward. You can keep ripping content from TrustedID, NumbrX, and the others--I can't police that. Just not mine.

Thanks,
Tom

Jarrod Hunt on Sep 11, 2006

Tom,

I see your point.

I am going to have the site taken down until some of these issues can be addressed.

ed dickson on Sep 11, 2006

Had to look at the site - I've had a few of these, also.

There is no one writing anything there.

Jai on Sep 11, 2006

Tom, as I satated in the first comment I posted here, there is not and there will not be any more material from your blog posted.

Tom Fragala on Sep 11, 2006

Thanks Jarrod and Jai. I appreciate it.

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