Web Hosting: Allowing Spam Blogs

This post is going to be stolen.  A while back I noticed an upsurge in splogs taking content off this site (thanks to Technorati, which doesn’t really filter them out of its stats).   So I decided to notify registrars and hosts (thanks to SlightlyShadySEO’s comment):

Dynamic Dolphin: Report SpamGoDaddy:  Spam Abuse

MyDomain:  Spam

Note that for MyDomain, they actually forward your email onto the offender!

For splogs hosted by blogspot, flagging them so far doesn’t seem to result in any discernable effect.

This had mixed results.  GoDaddy seemed to have the most straightfoward process.  Some hosts appear to periodically check (or other folks report these spammers), as “this account has been suspended” would occasionally pop up on a splog in my Technorati reactions list.

So when a particular splog (fitfanatic) really went nuts with the culling, I decided to contact their host (HostGator).  The only recourse they allow is for one to file a DMCA complaint.  While I could technically do this due to the Creative Commons license I blog under, this would mean exposing my identity to the spammer.  Not ideal:

Owning a splog that does not include stolen content is not illegal, nor is it against our terms of service.   We do not judge the merits of the sites that host with us, merely the legality.  As such, the violation that we are looking at is the stolen content.

To handle stolen content, we use the process documented by the DMCA.

In other words, HostGator allows spam blogs.  Which leads to a few questions.  Should hosting terms of service always contain anti-spam measures?  If not, then bloggers who do not want their identity shared with a known spammer have zero recourse with regards to their content.  Should search engines and blog analysis sites create a blacklist for known splog hosts, and submit them to more intense filtering algorithms?

There is a clear difference in the caliber of the hosting companies out there.