"One of My All-Time Top Affiliates..."
MyBlogLog Problems and Recent Drama
I guess it’s not all too surprising to find out that MyBlogLog.com analyzes, stores and uses the information gathered on your site. Just by looking at the statistics feature (mine is Pro) you’ll be amazed by the amount of detailed reporting, especially the “off-site clicks” and clicks on your Adsense ads features, which makes you wonder how much they know about your and your web surfing activity.
But the real issue is what do they do wit your information, and how secure is your information in their database?
I just read an article by David Utter on WebProNews titled “MyBlogLog Stirs Drama Over A Banning”. The article explains why Jeremy Schoemaker from www.ShoeMoney.com got banned from MyBlogLog for finding and teaching how to exploit a loophole that allows you to pose as other registered MyBlogLog personalities by manipulating the cookies on your PC.
According to WebProNews:
The Yahoo-owned blogging community service used unique and easily located user IDs that could be placed in a MyBlogLog cookie in a browser.
That way, when visiting another blog using MyBlogLog, the running list of visitors on the widget would show the spoofed visitor had stopped by for a look.
Reading through the article, and with some further reading, here’s what I managed to figure out:
1) MyBlogLog Had a Loophole That Could Be Exploited by Spammers
Jeremy explained that in his post titled “MyBlogLog Exploit - Getting Free Keyword Targeted Links ” how people are using MBL’s flaws to create keyword rich links back to their sites.
He then posted what would eventually have him banned from MBL, a post teaching people “How to Surf The Web as Shoemoney“, in which he also included other MBL users IDs. This was the reason why his account was banned, as the people in MBL didn’t like the idea of publishing other people’s IDs and “encouraging” (if that’s the correct word) to test out his findings.
2) MyBlog Responds, But Over Reacts?
MBL then changed the way their system works, effectively removing the loophole. However, they also banned Schoemaker and caused quite stir with the other bloggers, especially when they had earlier announced that all critiques / criticisms towards MBL should be laid out publicly.
Then Andy Beal said he would boycott MBL until Jeremy Schoemaker’s profile is reinstated. Another blow for MBL.
3) MBL Says Sorry
MBL then reinstates Schoemaker and apologized for their mistake. I think the guys at MBL have known all along that their system has massive flaws and it took such a fracas to speed up their efforts to make MBL a more secure, “real” place to network with other bloggers.
My 2 cents: It’s just a price the owners of MBL had to pay fro growing so big so fast. I’ll continue to use MBL as I’ve made a lot of new friends with it, and also got more exposure for my own business activities.
As for taking sides, I think Schoemaker should not have posted the actualy IDs. And since he did, I think it’s his fault. I’m sure he realizes that his blog is read by many people capable of taking that information and doing many different thins with it.
As for me, even after reading the posts, I don’t think I’m technically capable of making use of the information for my own “gain”, so if there was damage done to MBL from that single post, it surely would not have come from guys like me 
1 Comment »
Gobala Krisnan is a direct-response marketer turned blogger who makes over $10,000 a month from his blog empire. If you want to make money online from blogs, he is the only person who can reveal the secret of merging time-tested direct marketing strategies with web 2.0 traffic. Read more about him >>
Interesting how Shoemomey is able to make a huge traffic drive out of controversial issues like this. I bet his adsense earnings must have trippled that day he posted the exploit