[Imc] Spam & Advertising

[Mike Lehman]

Overnight the Newswire was moved off the frontpage of the global IMC. We
seem to already have been paid a visit by one of the persistent spammers
there. See:
http://www.ucimc.org/front.php3?article_id=5009&group=webcast

His practices will likely make it easy to do something under our current
policies. He posts the same message over and over, so the policy against
reposts will soon be invoked, no doubt. It is also seems designed to
generate advertising income from the pop-up banners that frequently
appear on the websites he links to. There has also been much speculation
about what use he is making of the personal info he gathers via his
"form".

He likely won't be the only such visitor in the near future, given the
change in pllocy on the global Newswire. We'll see what happens this
week and talk more about this at next Sunday's Steering meeting. In the
meantime, present polices that apply to this sort of abuse will be
invoked at the earliest opportunity.
Mike Lehman