Let's just hope it really is a JUST cause!!

Blogs Are Being Removed For Just Cause

In mid January 2008, Blogger started to do something about a major problem - blogs established in BlogSpot, in massive numbers, for illegal purposes - hacking, porn distribution, and spam distribution. That's not an easy task - there's nothing on any one blog that says

This blog is used for hacking, for porn distribution, and / or for spam distribution.

Detection of such illegal blogs, like detection of malware in general, has to be done by heuristic analysis and signature comparison. Unfortunately, detection of illegal blogs, like detection of malware, using both methods, are subject to two major problems

• False Negative Detection - Many illegal blogs are not detected, because the authors of such blogs are very skilled at making their blogs like normal blogs.


• False Positive Detection - Many legitimate blogs are falsely detected, again because the authors of the illegal blogs are very skilled at making their blogs look like normal blogs.

As Blogger tries harder to reduce the population of illegal blogs, and based upon the massive size and deviousness of that population, more legitimate blogs are going to be falsely flagged as illegal. In the past, false positive detection was handled on a one by one basis, and generally with a casual explanation.Now, with more false positives anticipated, bloggers must be better informed about Blogger policy. Accordingly, Blogger is providing resources to keep the blogging population better informed, when their blogs are removed - whether falsely or genuinely - based upon blogging behaviour detection, or content analysis. Blogger has three referential documents.

• Blogger Content Policy
• Google Privacy Policy
• Google Terms of Service

None of these will address each situation, but taken together, they are a good start. Only by knowing the limits, can we identify the legitimate bloggers, and avoid helping the illegitimate ones.If you get a Terms Of Service Violation notice, please let us know exactly what it looks like and where you see it. There is supposed to be a link to have the blog reviewed, possibly on the dashboard next to the blog in question. Most of us trying to help have seen neither the notice nor the link, because we're not getting TOSsed.

Help us to help you, and tell us what you are seeing.

Let's just hope the random removal of suspicious-"like" blogs are just!!