Spam, del.icio.us spam

del.icio.us is fantastic. But will it soon be over run by spammers?

del.icio.us has changed the way I use the internet. I am able to share bookmarks with people who have similar interests to me. Great, relevant and trusted content is brought to my attention which might otherwise remain hidden to me.

However, inherent in del.icio.us is the perfect vehicle for targeted advertising. del.icio.us appears perilously vulnerable to misuse.

For example, if I wanted to sell a certain brand of (rubbish) camera, I could bring the product to the attention of the many people subscribing to bookmarks tagged "photography". This would offer a quick, easy and free means of advertising my product. This advertising is guaranteed to hit the perfect target consumer - in this case, photography enthusiasts. Surely this is too tempting a prospect to be ignored by the advertising industry for long?

More insidiously, spammers could disguise a bookmark and use very many tags to bring a site to as wide an audience as possible. The result: someone subscribing to "photography" tags won't just have a del.icio.us inbox bombarded with adverts for rubbish cameras but also for the usual detritus peddled by the world's merchants of spam.

What are the limits of acceptable use? If I bookmark this article am I spamming del.icio.us? On the one hand, I want to see what the del.icio.us community think about this issue. I have no doubt that others have similar thoughts and could suggest possible solutions (or could point myself and others to discussions that have already taken place on this subject). Can this be justified as bookmarking an article of genuine collective interest and benefit?

On the other hand, del.icio.us is not a bulletin board. If I want to have this discussion shouldn't I be finding alternative means? Similarly, I work for a public service broadcaster. I have no commercial interest in posting our content to del.icio.us. Yet bookmarking a site or project I have been involved in, knowing that it will reach a large number of interested persons, is that really so different from the advertising executive who aims to disseminate "vital product information of benefit to consumers".

So, the first issue is, where do we want to draw the line?

The second issue is, can this line ever be enforced? (Indeed, would this compromise the community of trust as it currently stands)

SOLUTIONS?

- Blocking users is ineffective - Changing ids is simple.
- Using only trusted bookmark referrers hamstrings the full power of del.icio.us.
- Limiting the number of tags per bookmark - as above
- Global ignore - if someone gets x number of "ignores" they are universally shunned! (Too harsh in my view - something which the majority want to ignore might be of great interest to a minority. Articles on del.cio.us spamming are hardly mainstream stuff!)
- Ebay style rating of users or links - this over complicates the vital simplicity of del.icio.us plus you can already look at the number of ids linking to a given bookmark to get an idea of it's usefulness.
- Enforceable "conditions of use" to deter advertisers and spammers - enforceable how?!
- For more ideas on solutions see this discussion

btw Spam is not del.icio.us (imho) ... and of course I am going to bookmark this post - it would be churlish not to - please forgive!

Tuesday, November 02, 2004