Against Monopoly
defending the right to innovate
Open Thread
Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.
Copyright Notice: We don't think much of copyright, so you can do what you want with the content on this blog. Of course we are hungry for publicity, so we would be pleased if you avoided plagiarism and gave us credit for what we have written. We encourage you not to impose copyright restrictions on your "derivative" works, but we won't try to stop you. For the legally or statist minded, you can consider yourself subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License.
Comment Spam
Following a suggestion of a commentator, and based on reading the google blog, all links in comments are now marked "nofollow". This means that while the link works as normal, it will not be counted for Google page rankings. As the comment spam is being left by human beings paid by spammers (mostly hired from Amazon Mechanical Turk apparently) we may hope that the spammers are intelligent enough not to pay for links that won't increase their page ranks and will leave us alone. I will continue to be vigilant and delete spam as it appears. Let's see if that works before introducing registration and "trusted" users.
[Posted at 12/18/2010 09:39 AM by David K. Levine on Open Thread 
comments(4)]
Comments
We've used nofollow on all links for years and still get thousands of spam comments per day. It does make their links not effective, but it hasn't stopped them.
Have you looked into using an anti-spam filter service like Akismet?
[Comment at 12/20/2010 02:42 AM by Mike Masnick]
It's still possible to linkspam simply by not putting quotes around the link. Google would still pick it up as a link that counts for pagerank because there is no space before the "rel"
[Comment at 12/21/2010 12:39 PM by Kid]
Working link, even better.
[Comment at 12/21/2010 01:30 PM by Kid]
Fixed by putting a space before the rel.
[Comment at 12/26/2010 08:30 AM by David K. Levine]
Submit Comment
Most Recent Comments
at 07/10/2017 08:49 AM by Anonymous
at 04/19/2017 08:09 AM by Anonymous
Questions and Challenges For Defenders of the Current Copyright Regime Subject Very controversial Gráfica em
at 01/30/2017 05:03 AM by fernando
The right to rub smooth using a hardened steel tool with ridges Finally got around to looking at the comments, sorry for delay... Replying to Stephan: I'm sorry
at 05/08/2015 08:35 AM by Dan Dobkin
Let's See: Pallas, Pan, Patents, Persephone, Perses, Poseidon, Prometheus... Seems like a kinda bizarre proposal to me. We just need to abolish the patent system, not replace
at 04/10/2015 10:44 AM by Stephan Kinsella
The right to rub smooth using a hardened steel tool with ridges I'm a bit confused by this--even if "hired to invent" went away, that would just change the default
at 04/10/2015 10:34 AM by Stephan Kinsella
Do we need a law? @ Alexander Baker: So basically, if I copy parts of 'Titus Andronicus' to a webpage without
at 01/08/2015 08:58 PM by Sheogorath
Do we need a law? The issue is whether the crime is punished not who punishes it. If somebody robs our house we do
at 11/17/2014 04:48 AM by David K. Levine
Do we need a law? 1. Plagiarism most certainly is illegal, it is called "copyright infringement". One very famous
at 10/29/2014 10:49 AM by Alexander Baker
Yet another proof of the inutility of copyright. The 9/11 Commission report cost $15,000,000 to produce, not counting the salaries of the authors.
at 09/20/2014 03:19 PM by Alexander Baker
WKRP In Cincinnati - Requiem For A Masterpiece P.S. The link to Amazon's WKRP product page:
at 06/28/2014 10:03 AM by Doris
WKRP In Cincinnati - Requiem For A Masterpiece Hopefully some very good news. Shout! Factory is releasing the entire series of WKRP in Cincinnati,
at 06/28/2014 10:00 AM by Doris
What's copywritable? Go fish in court. @ Anonymous: You misunderstood my intent. I was actually trying to point out a huge but basic
at 05/05/2014 01:03 PM by Sheogorath
Rights Violations Aren't the Only Bads I hear that nonsense from pro-IP people all the
at 04/07/2014 04:47 AM by Dan McCracken
Intellectual Property Fosters Corporate Concentration Yeah, I see the discouragement of working on a patented device all the time. Great examples
at 01/13/2014 06:13 AM by Anonymous
Music without copyright Hundreds of businessmen are looking for premium quality article distribution services that can be
at 11/28/2013 05:03 PM by Stephanie Smith
at 11/28/2013 09:23 AM by Anonymous
at 11/28/2013 09:22 AM by Anonymous
Patent Lawyers Who Don't Toe the Line Should Be Punished! Moreover "the single most destructive force to innovation is patents".
We'd like to unite with you
at 11/24/2013 10:48 AM by SpaceCorp Technologies
at 11/20/2013 03:18 PM by Anonymous