gregd Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 A few words before I get into the meat of my topic. I did take steps to contact you in private before making my concerns public. Your contact us page (specifically the "Give Feedback" drop down selection), doesn't produce a form for me to fill out. What I'm about to say should only be taken as constructive criticism (to Immunet employees). An antivirus company, in my mind, is in the business of protecting your computer from having bad stuff happen to it. Regardless of their motives (money, altruism, etc.), that's their charge. Why then would a company like Immunet allow their blog to be overrun with spam where so many questionable links originate? For instance, here is a new blog post: http://prntscr.com/1hep7 and here is a blog post from almost a year ago: http://prntscr.com/1hepo As a consumer and recommender of AV products, this speaks *volumes* to me about your product(s). In all honesty, reviews of Immunet products are great and I was about to add it to my arsenal of protection, but not after visiting your blog (and learning of subsequent issues). In addition to this, Immunet forum users are now being spammed (via PMs to their forum accounts). It's also my understanding that other users have made you aware of these issues in the past and it still continues. I take computer security extremely seriously and find it extremely irresponsible of an "antivirus" company to allow this to continue to happen. Edited to add: Here are other forum posts telling you about the spam issues: Here Here and here. I've also asked cnet to reconsider their 4.5 star rating of Immunet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncan Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 In all fairness to Sourcefire and Immunet. They are aware of the spam issue and it was instigated by a few members that were banned. I am not aware of any spam recently although that might not be the case. They are going through some major changes at the moment and it is valid that you breach this topic again. I am a major contributer to the `Opera Browser' forums and they are a pretty big concern these days. However they are still having problems with spam at times and need to constantly be on top of it. As far as I know the only issue has been in the forums here and I am sure that every endeavor is being made to stop any re-occurance of this. I sincerely doubt that your public comments here will be deleted for example (whereas in a lot of companies they would for their own promotion) The product is good and I am sure these issues will be resolved completely especially with the new amalgamation with Sourcefire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregd Posted January 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Well I pointed out that the problems continue to exist on their blog platform also, so it's not just in here (forums). If I didn't care, I wouldn't be here to point this out. Immunet has to take this seriously as for me, it's an issue that's preventing me from recommending them to my customers. Keep in mind that this is also coming from a person who was paid for four years (a pretty good amount of money) to delete spam and spammers from a once, well-known social news site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfred Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Well I pointed out that the problems continue to exist on their blog platform also, so it's not just in here (forums). If I didn't care, I wouldn't be here to point this out. Immunet has to take this seriously as for me, it's an issue that's preventing me from recommending them to my customers. Keep in mind that this is also coming from a person who was paid for four years (a pretty good amount of money) to delete spam and spammers from a once, well-known social news site. OK, first off, trying to have our rating downgraded on CNET because our forum is being targeted by a spammer (or multiple spammers) is outright ridiculous. That rating reflects many thousands hours of work from a small team on a software product (not our blog or forum) which is pretty highly regarded by its user base, the rating reflects this. Behavior like yours, frankly, drives companies away from engaging communities as much as our apparent lapse in sorting out problem forum users this last week is driving you away from supporting our product. We do what we can and we are not always perfect. We'll keep trying and I suspect we will continue to get the majority of it dealt with but we'll also likely still have some slip through - such is the pernicious nature of spam. al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregd Posted January 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 OK, first off, trying to have our rating downgraded on CNET because our forum is being targeted by a spammer (or multiple spammers) is outright ridiculous. That rating reflects many thousands hours of work from a small team on a software product (not our blog or forum) which is pretty highly regarded by its user base, the rating reflects this. Behavior like yours, frankly, drives companies away from engaging communities as much as our apparent lapse in sorting out problem forum users this last week is driving you away from supporting our product. We do what we can and we are not always perfect. We'll keep trying and I suspect we will continue to get the majority of it dealt with but we'll also likely still have some slip through - such is the pernicious nature of spam. al Al, you didn't hear my message. It isn't *just* your forum. It's also your blog posts which are riddled with spam links and potential malware. One of the blog posts I listed as a screenshot goes back about a year ago. This issue wasn't meant to be taken personally. I'm a potential client who, I thought, was providing you valuable advice to improve your product through the only method I could find..this forum. As I stated, I would have emailed your company without using these methods, but your contact form is broken. I asked Cnet to reconsider your rating based on the fact that your blog posts continue to serve up potential malware and spam. Don't believe me? Go look for yourself. If you cannot afford to either hire someone to filter your commenting system or forums or even ask for valued members of the community to do the policing for you (like Duncan above), then I would argue that you aren't engaging the community (as you call it) in fact you're hurting it by leaving the comment spam out there. Sorry you took offense at what I've offered up. I didn't expect you to be perfect. But because you are an "antivirus" company, I do and will hold you to a higher standard in the realm of security. I still don't understand how the blog comment spam was and continues to be left out there on your official blog after a year. I also tried to tell you why, as a potential client, I decided NOT to use your product. If I've offended you and your team and that's all that you take away from this, then for that I'm truly sorry. I haven't attacked anyone *personally*. I haven't even dissed your product, as I have yet to test it. I merely asked Cnet to "review" their ranking based on the facts that I've presented here and nothing else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfred Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Al, you didn't hear my message. It isn't *just* your forum. It's also your blog posts which are riddled with spam links and potential malware. One of the blog posts I listed as a screenshot goes back about a year ago. I heard your message clearly, it was your judgment I took exception to. We could debate this all day but neither of our positions are likely to change. Happy travels. al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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