Ian Turner, WebmasterWorld Moderator Missing from New Orleans

Ian Turner has been missing for almost a week now. I'm not the only one who is feeling disturbed about this.

Tim Mayer of Yahoo was thoughtful enough to post about it in the Yahoo blog.
http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000132.html

Ian's predicament is on the minds of webmasters worldwide. I hope he comes home safely.

Ian is the moderator of the European Search Engine forum at WebmasterWorld. He was last seen on Saturday.

Title 18, Section 2257 Compliance Regulations Shake up Adult Webmasters

The pending changes in the way adult content is regulated may rock the industry, depending on how fast the US Government moves to enforce the new rules, and how fast free speech advocates move to put a stay on it.

Judging by what adult webmasters are telling me, there's a bit of confusion as to what this could mean to them as affiliates, with the concomitant fear and anxiety that comes from not knowing how sure your ground is. The heart of the confusion lies in the ambiguity of what a "secondary producer" is. A few webmasters I spoke with are seriously considering pulling down all of their websites, while others say they will wait for more information.

I have been told that some programs have asked their affiliates to remove all of their free content, as well as asking their affiliates to stop using sexually explicit banners ads and to switch them out to non-explicit banners. Here is an email excerpt that was forwarded to me by a concerned adult webmaster:

At this time ------ will discontinue offering free content for promotion of any of it's sites. If you are using free content for any of the reality sites, you should remove it now... All promo material in the system that is explcit (sic) will have to be removed and redesigned.

According to some reports, free speech groups will begin filing suits on both the East and West Coasts, but they advise people that enforcement of the new ammendment, scheduled to go into effect on June 23rd, "is likely to be swift."

As the adult industry is one of the largest areas of internet commerce, it will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

Putting a HIT on a Competitors Website: The Black Glove Webmaster

So you have a competitor who's pissing you off because she's in the number one position and just won't share the guitar and let someone else sing. You pick at the site, you know it's spammy, but can't find anything to nail them against the wall with. Yet you know they're spammy... What do you do? Call an Internet Hitman to take down the site for you?

The Black Glove Webmaster
Or would you put on the black gloves and do it yourself? You can set up a network of sites and feed links to them in the spammiest way you can think of (blogs, forum sigs, guestbooks, FFA's, link exchange clubs), then create hallways that lead to more hallways full of hundreds of different anchor text combinations all pointing at your competitor's site.

Next step is to talk about it in the blogs. Say something like, "I was researching the backlinks of a client's competitor, and look what I found!"

Is that an unlikely scenario? Not really. I know for a fact that DDOS attacks have been carried out against websites for the purpose of retribution. Were these attacks done by hire? It is entirely possible to carry out an "website assasination," to "murder a website" and make it go away. It's the online equivalent of setting a competitor's store on fire.

That is the danger in posts like this one from Threadwatch:
FT.com Caught Selling Hidden Links

In the above thread, a blog is referenced where the blogger recounts how he discovered a competitor of a client (named as debtcounsellors.co.uk or maybe it's debts.net, I'll leave you to untangle that one) had allegedley purchased hidden links on another, quite prestigious website.

Stories like the above make for a funny read. It's like your favorite celebrity caught acting like a regular punter. We all enjoy seeing others exposed, that's why tabloids sell. But I find this kind of reporting to be troublesome because it opens the door for creative assasination.

Would people do such things? Taking a look at what people do to each other offline, hitmen for websites doesn't appear that far-fetched. The black glove webmaster may be the next niche for the unscrupulous. Look for hits to become more creative.