Comments on: Feedblitz: An Accidental Spam Blogger

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:46:45 +0000

I agree that Feedblitz has kind of a sketchy presence on the Web. To me, they've always seemed to walk a fine line between doing outright bad things and being honest. They are what one might consider a “grey” hat in this field. However, what you report to me does have me worried, I'll have to look into it when I get a chance though I doubt there will be much anyone can do about it.

By: Sam Deeks

Sam Deeks — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 09:08:40 +0000

I was trialling a Feedblitz account and out of interest clicked on an ad for 'auto insurance' in the email updates I was getting (using my own email address to test).

The ad sent me to a site that demanded I "download this bit of software in order to view this page". Nice.

As far as I'm concerned, Feedblitz looked spammy from the outset (make $$$$ from our ad syndication) but that made my mind up.

I cancelled - but, noting your point above, am completely unconvinced that it actually cancelled so will be keeping a close eye on it.

It's funny isn't it - I didn't like the smell of it from the beginning.

By: Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:04:57 +0000

Thank you very much for getting in touch with me. The above article has been updated to reflect these changes.

Thank you again for your quick response.

By: phollows

phollows — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:24:59 +0000

Hi Jonathan:

Thanks to your making us aware of the problem FeedBlitz has added a "NOINDEX" option to the settings. It's available during initial configuration, and may be applied to existing newsletters by going to the Newsletter Center at FeedBlitz, clicking "Newsletter Settings", moving to the next screeen and checking the NOINDEX box on.

Thanks again for the heads-up,

Phil