tdaxp

Two strange messages (I've left them in tact, except for the hyperlink) have appeared in the comments for my posts, Dozier Internet Law harms client's reputation and Did Dozier Internet Law Misrepresent a Federal Judge?."

The first comment reads:

Here is the Dozier Internet Law Blog:

[url redacted by tdaxp]

Frankly, it seems pretty insightful.

and the second is:

I don't know who is right. It looks like it might be Dozier:

[url redacted by tdaxp]

At first blanch, these are merely spam messages. The IPs of the two comments (left with the same nick and email account) are quite different... the 128.241.*.* range resolves to NTT America (a "global IP solutions company"), while the range of 207.195.240.0 to .255.255 resoles to Global Tac, LLC. Global Tac has been implemented in spam messages before. It appears that Global Tac hides behind150 different IP messages to conduct its spam campaigns, so the discrepancy between the IP addresses is smaller than it appears.

Dozier Internet Law is no stranger to spam as a means of advertising - they've long generated spam websites with nonsensical information. Still, escalating this to include spam comments on private blogs comes dangerously close to trespass and hacking.

I don't know, but Wikipedia's Revision history for "DirectBuy" now discusses "possible user of sleeper accounts. The text that keeps getting removed reads:

Complaints

Many customers have complained that they have been deceived by DirectBuy into signing expensive contracts for the privilege of purchasing goods supplied by the company. A three-year membership usually costs about $5,000, with yearly fees in the hundreds layered on top of that. Furthermore, potential members are told at the information sessions that unless they commit to it right then and there, they will be ineligible for membership for another seven years. While DirectBuy prices have been proven to be lower than some of their competitors' prices, all purchased items incur a processing and shipping fee, which is not included in the original price quote. In many cases, these additional costs usually bring the total price to that above what can usually be found at many traditional retailers.[citation needed]

Critics of DirectBuy

• Big Membership Fee Doesn't Always Mean Big Savings


• Direct Buy: One Man's Story


• The Secrets of Direct Buy


• MLM Law on Similar Cases


• Edumacation Archives on DirectBuy


• Discover Vanouver Bulletin Board Discussion


• Numerous Complaints about the company

The section has been removed repeated by users "Wiseard" and 206.228.159.59."

While it is clear that DirectBuy intimidates those who complain and floods the web with spam, the question of whether they violate Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy is an open question. Certainly I've run against over-zealous wikipedians in the past (who deleted the entry for "5GW" and wished to destroy information on "Unrestricted Warfare"), so nothing is certain at this time.