Online Game Encouraging Spam

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Posted by Zonk on Tuesday September 28, 2004 @05:49AM from the dubious-techniques-to-say-the-least dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Outwar.com (an online game) has posted instructions on how to spam their unique link using underhanded and fraudulent techniques such as misleading URLs in forums and emails." Evidently by having people click on their link, players gain in-game power. These tips seem to directly contradict their stated spam policy. Shady.

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I suggest we really fuck up the game. by Dark+Lord+Seth · 2004-09-28 06:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

By writing a script that will access a random referer ID. Considering it uses just plain standard HTTP, this wouldn't be much of an issue. Unfortunately, they got a system so that you can only click one of their damned links every 5 minutes, but I'm sure some rudementary IP spoofing will get through that. Ethical? No. Legal? Not really. Justified? Very.
Fight fire with fire.

--
Hate me!
1. Re:I suggest we really fuck up the game. by maddugan · 2004-09-28 08:52 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Pick just one patsy.
  
  Choose a player who sounds the most clueless from their forums. If they suddenly become the most powerful player what does any of the other players have to gain from continuing to play?
  
  Rinse and repeat until the top players are replaced with all patsies.
Not surprising, referral based games encourage it. by WiredOni · 2004-09-28 11:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

I am not surprised at this announcement, people have been spamming these links through various online forums for quite some time now. They do absolute noting to fix this spamming problem, and their so called "anti-spam" policy is a joke.

The only way to succeed in these "games" is to get the most clicks, and to accomplish this you have to spam your link through various sites. Also these sites tend to offer prizes as an incentive for people to play and spam.

If they really wanted to kill spamming they would use a confirm system that only logs clicks after the link clicker registers to play. Of course that would greatly reduce the numbers of people clicking, viewing the site and its advertisements, would make it harder for the spammers to get anywhere, and pretty much kill the only fun thing about these so called games.

That is why sites like this love the referral based system, and set them up in their favor. They like this because they are able to blame the spammer and claim no responsibility for the spam, while on the side encouraging and helping people to do this abuse. Other fun things they can do with a referral system is can claim that they killed a spammer, only to transfer them to a new account or kill it till the heat dies off. Most sites like this allow the spammer to sing back up without any problems. They can also chose to ignore the abuse reports and allow the spammer to keep at it.

So it is easy to see why they do this, if they had to do confirmations through signups their game wouldn't last very long. The only way to get those clicks to their site and people to continue playing is by allowing spamming.