Eat your spam…and LIKE IT!!!

So over the past two weeks or so, this journal has been under constant attack by LiveJournal comment spammers; I’ve been averaging about 2-5 pieces of spam a day, mostly for penis enlargers, “herbal Viagra,” and tooth whiteners, in comments to various posts.

Interestingly, all the spamvertised Web sites are hosted by the same ISP: Sago Networks, an American Web hosting ISP located in Atlanta.

I’ve emailed the abuse team at Sago Networks repeatedly. They refuse to take action against their pet spammers unless LiveJournal actually provides them with the LJ server logs showing the placement of the spam.

Now, here’s the interesting thing. Sago Networks is headquartered right across the street from my office. I mean that literally; right across the street. You can see their building from my front door; they’re a ten-second walk away.

I woke up this morning to still more comment spam, all of it hosted by Sago. If this continues, I think I’ll walk over there and ask them in person why they like hosting spammers so much. (Not like I don’t already know the answer: money. It’s profitable to host spammers, at least in the short run.)

I’m thinking of putting a Spam Supporter Hall of Shame on my Web site, listing pro-spam outfits like Sago and Pipex (who do not consider Usenet spam to be “spam,” and permit their customers to spam Usenet newsgroups with impunity) and the email exchanges I’ve had with them, so people who don’t like spam supporters can make informed decisions about who to host with.

[EDIT] The Sago facility across the street from me is their data center. Their corporate headquarters are (ready for this?) in Tampa, about five minutes from my old Tampa office. They’re stalking me!