It appears that Ping-o-matic, a service that passes on update pings from blogs to several search engines and is used by default in WordPress installs, may not want to handle traffic from sites with adult content. From Dougal Campbell’s blog:
> Do you have any idea of why I can not ping your site anymore?
Because we don’t want pings from porn sites?
What disturbs me about this post:
- No reason is given for blocking the site, other than their content.
Obviously if this person was abusing the service, that would be understandable grounds for removal. But no mention is made of that. - Porn is equated with spam
Dougal placed his post in the “spam” category. Again, no mention was made of abuse of the service, the site being a known spammer, or what have you — just that it’s a “porn site.”Given the way some people in the industry choose to handle their business, it’s not entirely surprising that many (most?) people equate porn with spam. But it’s flawed thinking, not unlike equating labor unions with organized crime, or George W. Bush with christianity.
- What exactly is a “porn site?”
Is it just commercial sites that make you pay for access to pornographic materials, or does it include any site that has adult content? What about SugarBank, or Wilful Damage, or Ms Kitka? - Ping-o-matic has no terms of service information
Ping-o-matic is privately owned, and is well within their legal rights to deny service to anyone they choose. If they are going to deny use of their service based purely on site content, though, it only seems fair that they tell you up front. They don’t have to, I guess, but it’s not unreasonable to expect.
