Shoemoney is being met with the old 403 forbidden notice when he tries to use MyBlogLog service, yes, he’s been banned. While he claims to have been given no specific reason it might have something to do with him writing blog posts showing how to masquerade as other uses (cookie file hack) and exploit other spammer-friendly holes in MyBlogLog. Did Shoemoney tell the developers these things privately and give them a chance to fix the issues? My guess is no which is the same sorry game a number of security vulnerability sites play.

Scott Rafer showed up in Shoemoney’s comments to confirm there would be a refund for his pro subscription.

I’ve complained before about the lopsided way security vulnerability sites work. It’s extremely easy to report a bug but it’s a lot harder for the patch to get the same kind of press/exposure. There is one security vulnerability site that has been carrying a notice on a program I wrote that’s over five years outdated now. I gave up trying to contact them and get an update to the page with where the patch was available. It must invite more eyeballs sharing vulnerabilities (bad) and is less interesting sharing the solutions (good).

With this in mind I sure hope even though Shoemoney is banned that he’ll give MyBlogLog the same type of press when/if the MyBlogLog team fixes the problems he’s identified and exposed.

I’m all for honest, detailed reviews of products but when it comes down to something that leaves a service open to spammers and can impact other users negatively, one should at least try to get the company’s help through direct contact. I’m not sure if Shoemoney was in contact with them privately or not.

In this case MyBlogLog, er Yahoo, takes a hit. Even if Shoemoney was in the wrong here, Scott Rafer, you guys didn’t handle this situation right. Fix the bugs and thank those who report them to you, no matter if they embarass you/your company in the process or not. Do not ban customers who blog negatively about your product.

In light of these problems, I’ve removed the MyBlogLog sidebar panel from our VTOR group blog and I will not be adding it to any other blogs. I’m glad I didn’t bother using it here. Those who are using MyBlogLog might want to read Jeremy’s posts and think twice.

eBay style rating service at ReviewMe good or bad idea?
While talking about negativity, it seems ReviewMe, the service I’ve used roughly a dozen times, that pays for reviews is adding an eBay style rating service. I like the concept of allowing advertisers to rate the quality of a review I write but am concerned that it will be used as a weapon against negative reviews written.

If that’s starts happening I’ll be out of there.

Advertisers are paying me to look at something and give my honest opinion and I don’t want or need some rating vengeance scheme messing with the process. I don’t mind getting rated down if I write a lousy quality review, heck I like the idea of the advertiser being able to rate the quality of my reviews. In eBay you are rating whether the item was as advertised and delivered promptly, that makes sense. In a paid for review scenario, an advertiser could positively rate positive reviews of their product/services and rate negatively the converse. That’s problematic if that starts happening.

Will advertisers rate reviews on quality? Can they? Or will they be biased against negative reviews?

I would be more than happy to compare the reviews I’ve written against any other reviewer in the ReviewMe system as my reviews currently average around 1,500 words (more than seven times the minimum 200 word requirement), contain images and details of my experiences good, bad and indifferent.

When it’s released I hope advertisers will not use this rating tool vindictively. I try to provide everybody that I review helpful information that will improve their site/product/service and do so without any agenda. Every product/service I’ve reviewed through the system has been either brand new or relatively new to me. I don’t use NOFOLLOW so a good review and bad review get the same kind of link treatment. That leaves the quality criteria to the actual information provided in the reviews.

I would like to see every legitimate company sell more products/service on the web, but the whole point of getting an unbiased review means that sometimes there will be negative feedback that needs addressing. Banning customers like MyBlogLog did to Shoemoney or rating a reviewer negatively because of a negative review isn’t right.

To reiterate, this hasn’t happened to me or anybody else yet, the rating service isn’t even live, but I just wanted to share a concern for the rating system and felt like the comments area of the ReviewMe post wasn’t good enough. Think I still have Patrick Gavin’s email address so I’m going to send along a link to this post as well. Maybe he’ll respond in kind below.

The comments area on all the reviews I’ve done is wide open and would encourage the advertisers to stop by and dispute, update and/or challenge anything I’ve written. If I make any mistakes I’ll be happy to update the review and credit accordingly.

I hope the ReviewMe folks make it very clear to advertisers that they should be making their rating based on the quality of the reviews and not the overall rating and also that reviewers understand they do have an obligation to write a thorough honest review of a service and not just skate by with the 200 word minimum and disclaimer.

Update 2/25/07 6:31pm PST: MyBlogLog has unbanned, apologized and are now actually promoting Shoemoney on the front page. I think it’s wonderful that they’ve done the right thing (after peer pressure set in) but I’m going to hold off on reinstating their code. I believe in second chances, but would like to see what other skeletons, if any, shake out of the code closet first.

• ReviewMe offers $25,000 to bloggers in exchange for honest reviews
• PR agencies missing the boat on product reviews?
• Wired goes undercover and proves Digg popularity can be bought
• Soapbox can import your blog reviews automatically
• Buyer beware, even a worthless application can get five star awards
• Blogging today on the Vista machine