Do you mind this guy spamming your store group?

Do you care when your store group gets spammed with advertising?

I normally just let it go, but did some checking on a spammer today. I went over to his store with a fellow I use to ward off spam attacks and we checked the place out for a while. Granted, the product was not great, unlikely to sell much....but....

He had people dropping in right and left - better than a freebie hunt - and will assume this will go on all day, all week. I read the profiles of people dropping in - and went through their group lists. Same groups over and over - it was crystal clear what groups he spammed and he picked BIG ones.

Some groups got hit hard - meaning, their group members were over there one right after the other.

So basically this spammer, just got a ton of free advertising from the hard work of a bunch of other store owners....and a ton of real, breathing traffic that would make a bot look like a pansy.

That's the first time I ever actually watched the effect of a spammer, and even though I didn't see any of my group members over there - and I wasn't sure if anyone was actually spending lindens.... it made me cringe when I saw the same group names show up over and over, and I know for a fact those store owners worked hard to build their business.

The Spam Patrol is going to contact them....with a courtesy note....but if it were you, your store group that got hit.....would you even care?

Sorry people fell for it. I always wondered who fell for spam that people keep sending it out.

Was he selling fake Rolexes? No wait, I've seen those in freebie boxes...

/me waves hello to Mickey

Mickey, do you mean those people who join a big group, then post to the group dropping a link in the group chat, upon which they are immediately banned by the group owner? Every time I see it happen, either the group (business) owner or someone they have authorized immediately bans the person. Usually you only see it once before the banning. Is that what you mean?

Treasure - I received the LM from him when I logged on this morning - and an alt, which I have in group as a means to double check on spamming, received one, too. The alt is not in any other groups, to verify that it was just mine.

The LM came from one of his group officers. They may have gone so far as to send the LM individually to each group member.

I don't think it was displayed in group chat - but sent individually to each group member. Yeah - that took some time - but it was highly effective. People were dropping in like crazy to this little bitty store.

Clarissa - evidently a LOT of people fall for it.

Hi Sable

This would encorage me to free up one of my 25 group slots..

specifically I'd AR then ban the idiot from any place I had the power to do so, and report them to the group owner for mining the groups name list for spam targets, and suggest they do the same. presuming the group owner does nothing to discipline the person I'd also be dropping the group.

and this is one reason why I wish all group membership lists were hidden.

I would care and I would want to know it happened. Since group chat doesn't go to email if the owner isn't online they don't know they've been spammed. I'm online a lot, but not around the clock. I would hope someone would tell me if it happened when I wasn't around.

My group is small so I doubt it has ever happened to me, but stuff like this is another reason I'm growing to prefer services like Hippo Groups and Subscribe-o-matic. They eliminates the group chat/spam problem and it's easier to get members when it doesn;t take up a group space.



I find that very sad.

I guess gullible people need something to do in SL while sitting at home waiting for their mail order Viagra and Nigerian ONE HUNDRED MILLION US DOLLARS to arrive.

YeS ......specially when they say its not spam


but It's covered in the TOS



.

I like how people spam groups and then insist it's not spam. And then when the group owners say something like "this group isn't for posting links to your own stores and venues", the offenders start whining all self-righteously, like "How was I supposed to know?"

I use hippo groups so won't happen there, they have no way to get the names of the folks in the group.

with 643 members as of today, I would not consider it a small group, however it is not as large as some out there either.

I like the hippo (and subscribe o matic) groups for this very reason, no group spam, no group chat spam, nothing like that

I've not used the subscribe-o-matic systems because I've been on the receiving end of some major screw ups there, that did not reflect well on the store owner....so have steered clear of those systems for the moment....but still a possibility.

A ban feature would be nice on groups - I have ejected several, that will just pop back in the next day. But that wouldn't have deterred this spammer, as they simply went through group list, mined it, then left. One of the groups they spammed had several thousands of members....what a gold mine for the spammer.

We notified the store owners whose groups kept popping up in the visitors profiles, but considering the visitors each had about 20 groups, was a bit difficult to notify each one, although several groups showed up consistently, and those were the ones notified. The ones notified most definitely "minded." They were hot. There was no guarantee that their whole group was spammed - could have been a coincidence that their group names kept showing up - but once they did some checking around with group members - yes, some were spammed.

Many of us filed the AR, and banned the spammers from our properties....but when they are spamming 1000's during the day...damage is already done. And by damage, I mean that they lured people in to buy things with lindens that could have been spent in your store, whether your store was spammed or not. Most people have a limited number, so the lindens can go to a cheat, or to someone who works hard.

Even though they had "less than desirable" products - it appeared that people were clicking, possibly buying. So if you aren't selling animated bedroom sets and bathroom sets for 80L or less - you lost some sales today.

I keep an alt in group, with no other groups on their list - so if we both receive spam, I'm pretty sure it is for my group. Also noticed the other night, that after I ejected someone from group - they were still able to chat in group chat, as long as they had the box pulled up.

one thing that would be nice, is an option to allow or disallow people in your group to view the list of other people in the group. (much like how we can allow or disallow sending notices, chatting, etc)

and it would solve the problem of spam

I did a search on the jira and could not find anything relating to such an idea, so I went ahead and created a jira for this.
The ability for the group owner to allow or disallow people to see the group's member list, maybe even via roles.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-12355

Thank You, Rhaorth.....when you say "the ability to turn off chat for people in a specific role"....do you mean that only the group owner can initiate a chat? or do you mean something else?

If I remember correctly there is an option that you can disable the ability for people to be able to chat in group.

Let me log in and see if I can find it

it is the last option on the abilities list
if you look it should say chat

then 3 options
join group chat
join group voice chat
moderate group chat

I have not tested these.
You could use an alt, give it a stand alone role, and try each option as unchecked and see what the alt can and can not do

ok - I definitely don't want to keep group members from pulling up group to chat any time - they get a kick out of that - but that would have come in handy the other night if I knew what button to push to just end the chat and get rid of the troublemaker, as ejecting did not work. I'll do a test on those options - thanks.

welcome
if nothing else, make it so that the everyone role (default role when open joining a group) is a chat disabled role

then when folks have proven themselves (by not mining your members list) then move them into a vip role which has chat on

(if chat on is what you want)

AR it and get a bunch of your loyal customers to AR it as well.

Chances are, his "store" won't be around much longer when he can't log in from multi-day suspensions.

It works, too.

Here's what we did....we each went to a mainland spot to file abuse report - I think there were 6 to 8 so far. We also went to the land where the store is, and filed an abuse report there, plus the guy I use for spam patrol chatted with the owner of the land they rent from, and she was not amused.

He went through the spammers group lists and issued a warning to each store group owner, in case they were next on the list, and they were very appreciative.

Each store that got spammed, sent a stern message to the store owner who spammed.

Using a network like this - I think they will get enough complaints. I didn't want to trouble group members with this - it takes a bit of time - - but the store owners were gung ho to go about it. A few friends also went to their store and hung out and chatted a while with Spamees....very interesting conversations

I watched the map yesterday - and they were dropping in one right after the other - not so much today, so maybe they got the message early, from our warning letters...not sure if the reports had hit them yet.

Sure wish there was a place you could post their store names. I'm working on another one today.