What Blogger Is Doing To Fight Spam

I just discovered a good feature Blogger has introduced - an anti-Spam Blog feature. If you wish to read more about Spam Blogs, go here.

Basically, what it does is that an automated feature on all blogs hosted by Blogger (or elsewhere and managed by Blogger Dashboard) detects any possibility of a blog becoming a Spam Blog. Once it detects or identifies your Blog as a potential Spam Blog, it sends you a notifcation at the blog's registration email, locking your blog, and urges you to act within a specified period to unlock the blog - failing which your blog will be deleted.

Among the things implemented are:

1. It keep spam blogs out of NextBlog and the "Recently Published" list.
2. The same classifiers are used to require an extra word verification field on the posting form for potential spam blogs, making it harder for spammers to set up automated systems to do their posting since human intervention needs to complete this step.
3. The Flag as Objectionable button is introduced in the Navbar which lets readers notify Blogger of problem blogs and put them for review them and take appropriate action

This is an interesting development for Blogger towards creating a more socially responsible blogging commune on the web, especially when Blogger is the biggest host of blog community. Whether this control over spammers is in line with the Internet spirit of free speech is another matter, however. At the very least, from a public relations aspect, this anti-Spam Blog control will garner goodwill from Internet-users and keep spamming rogues at their wits' end.

However, it is interesting to note too that many blogs have been set up to host objectionable content, particularly porn, disguised under 'ADULT MATERIAL'. One wonders what Blogger is doing about it next,