No spam comes from Google

This morning I got a spam comment on one of my Blogspot blogs. I sent a report to abuse@google.com and got the following non-helpful reply:

Thank you for your note. This is an automated reply. If you're reporting a spam email with a Google return address, please be assured that it did not originate with Google. Google does not permit others to send unsolicited email through its mail servers. A number of unscrupulous businesses have sent out mass mailings with forged Google return addresses. Google is actively pursuing all available legal means to stop these miscreants from abusing our name and your inbox. We appreciate your understanding, and please accept our sympathies for the inconvenience this may have caused.
 
For further assistance or to report a problem with a Google product, please visit http://www.google.com/support/ for a list of our Help Centers.
 
Regards,
The Google Team

So it was all a hallucination. No spam ever comes from Google, so they don't need to deal with spam reports.

To fend off further hallucinations, I've turned comment moderation back on. Sorry about that.

Dozier Internet Law spams search engines

I just discovered this from I Hate Linux: Dozier Internet Law, already infamous for issuing dubious cease-and-desist letters and threatening legal action against anyone who quotes them, has been trying to game the search engines by setting up a large number of domains, each with slightly different content.

There are legitimate reasons for a business to register large numbers of similar domain names; but when each one has slightly different content without serving a distinct purpose, the only purpose it can serve is to fool search engines into treating them as independent sites. This helps to push critical pages down in the ranking. Several of these dummy sites show up in the first page of a Google search today, so apparently Dozier's scam is working for the moment.

Pages such as this, or this, or this, or this, or this have been pushed down, but aren't forgotten. Each time Dozier tries to hoodwink the public, it just becomes more laughable.

Real ID challenged in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania legislators are offering challenges to Real ID. State senator Folmer and representative Rohrer have introduced bills in their respective houses to block state participation.

I haven't seen any word on how Congress plans to enforce shutting down all air travel in recalcitrant states. Apparently Congress is still confident it can intimidate all the legislatures in the United States into submission.