temporary triumph of the referrer spammers
may as well admit it. referrer spam has now made this site’s referrer stats close to worthless.
not that big a deal, and i’m not really doing anything to fight it, except by password protecting my stat directory (it was already a robots.txt disallow), for what that’s worth. i know there are some who are geeking night and day to save their stats with painful workarounds, but it’s not that important to me.
one thing is nice to consider about the future of referrer spam; the market will eventually shut it down. government may one day make noise about it (if it hasn’t already), as it does with anything it thinks will make it sound useful, but it’s the market that will solve the problem, just as it has begun to with email spam (i can now sometimes go 1 or 2 days without a single spam email, despite my email address being plastered without any protection in mailto links all over the internet).
“but it was the market that brought us email spam!” some idiot might exclaim. “it’s the market that brought referrer spam!”
exactly. the market comprises all types, including a large segment of nasty folks. however, compare that to government, not perfection. where does this laughable (and obviously false) presumption of government squeaky-cleanness come from? there is no perfection; there is only superiority. and that truth is clearly on the side of those whose survival is linked to the direct, consistent, peaceful pleasing of their customers — those who chose the association rather than had it shoved up their asses by force.
no, i will sit tight and await the inevitable solution that will be offered to me without even asking for it (or paying in advance against my will). that is a helluva system.