What in hell’s name are Wikio doing?
Having noticed an odd link in the incoming traffic to this blog, I followed it only to find a Google spreadsheet, available to anyone, not just to the author, with the emails of half the blogosphere on it. It is part of Wikio’s effort to encourage bloggers in the top 100 to agree to have their websites translated into other languages.
Wikio staff contacted various bloggers directly, and encouraged them to set up biographies and pictures on the Wikio website, where the rankings are all located. Naturally it makes sense to have all this information gathered into one place, so that the progress of each blogger can be monitored, before their material is turned over to the translators.
But one has to wonder what the hell Wikio are doing gathering that information into a publicly viewable place? A lot of it – like my name and the email address attached to this blog – are already public, but I can’t imagine a lot of those other email addresses, names, twitter accounts and even secondary email addresses are all public. Even if they are, putting them in one public spreadsheet is good news for spam bots, bad news for us.
Also, note the interesting “(argh!)” remark beside the notation that a user’s blog is pro-life. That tickled me.
PS, I have noted that by linking to the spreadsheet, I’m making it ‘more’ public – giving it attention. My argument is that it’s already public and shouldn’t be, and that my complaint has more credibility if I can link to the evidence, and maybe this extra publicity will encourage bloggers to follow me in emailing complaints to Wikio. (There is now no need to do this).
didn’t take them long to take it down
Bad, bad Wikio!
I can’t access it though, doesn’t let me. Perhaps Wikio have noticed your post and changed the permissions.
Dear Dave Semple,
I’m Laurent, Uk Editor for E-Blogs, Wikio’s European Review of Blogs. I am extremely surprised that the spreadsheet you’re mentioning was labeled “public”. Let me explain. As editor, I’m working on a spreadsheet that is private and has indeed details for me in order to contact bloggers. I still don’t understand why it became public or shared in any way. If it has, I’m very sorry. I made sure the document was deleted, so that noone has access to those details. I must insist on this : I, like noone else, and am certain Wikio follows me on this : I’m very respectful of civil liberties in general & of bloggers in particular. I am myself a blogger. Don’t hesitate to contact me : laurent.delpit[at]wikio.com | be assured of my sincerity, Laurent
P.S. as for the “argh!” for which i must justify. It is “my” argh applying for a blog which happened to deliver a homophobic content. Of course, it shoud never have been made public. If you felt in any way offended, I personnally apologize for this.
I didn’t feel offended Laurent. I was just amused. Anyway, all is well as ends well, the mistake is rectified.
Wikio is also doing lots of Comment Spam, the bane of every bloggers existence. How on earth can they do that?