You may or may not have heard that MyBlogLog has been the recent target of hacks and exploits, the most recent of which involves spoofing your cookies so that you could impersonate other bloggers. Unfortunately, the publishing of how to do this *and* the publishing of other folks cookie ID #’s (such as Darren Rowse, or TechCrunch) led to popular blogger and SEO jester Shoemoney to get banned at MyBlogLog.
After a brief period of public outcry, Eric “I’m your first friend” Marcoullier of MyBlogLog has re-instated Shoemoney. Turns out that they banned him not only because he published other folks cookie ID’s, but also for another reason:
… to prevent him from updating and populating that list — even after they fixed the exploit.
Eric goes on to say over at the official MBL blog:
Shoemoney’s picture is now featured on our Members page, we unbanned his IP address, and we at MyBlogLog hope to return to the constructive dialog that we once had. Like others who have apologized for their contribution to this controversy, we believe in redemption and hope ShoeMoney does as well.
I was initially critical of Shoemoney getting banned — after all, they had no TOS to hold him accountable to, no matter how ungentlemanly his actions were (as an aside, their TOS has now been created). However, with his re-instatement, I think that this was handled in a fairly decent fashion.
Managing public relations goofs is a part of blogging life. The best way to address it is head on, and in an expedient fashion — even if it isn’t during business hours — which is what the MBL crew have done. Even though they have recently been gobbled up by a giant web entity who has had difficult focusing their own on-line efforts (Yahoo!), they deserve a big tip of the hat for their nimbleness.
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