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Thursday, June 28, 2012

A New Extremely Weird Plagiarism Technique?

I’ve had extremely weird comments on my reviews in the last couple of days… they actually looked like reviews. Weird hen? Well after the third comment of the likes, I decided to Google them and, surprise surprise, they were part of someone’s review!

Someone is commenting on my reviews, under a Country’s name, linking to some website or other… Let me show you the screenshots!

The first one was left on Christine’s review of Black Howl by Christina Henry:

Brazil

And I found it on Amazon (screenshot below) & Goodreads:

Kathy

The second on was left on Stephanie’s review of Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendra Blake:Canada

And once again, I found the review on Amazon:

Yolanda

And the third one was left on my review of Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night by Kresley Cole:

France

And oh surprise, it’s also taken from an Amazon review:IAD

I won’t link to the websites these plagiarizers linked to, because hey, I don’t want to give them extra links, but I find it very upsetting!

And the worst is, I don’t think you can detect those plagiarism act searching via Google, because they are comments and as far as I know, Google doesn’t track them!

Any of you received that kind of comments lately?

tynsig

Tynga is a 32 years old mom of two, from Montreal, working as a lab technician in an hospital specialized in heart disease. In her free time, she enjoys reading all things Paranormal and photography.

Follow Tynga on: Facebook | Twitter

49 People left their mark' :

  1. I received one of these from 'Brasil' this morning... This is the second of these to hit my blog in the past month or so. Very disturbing!

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  2. I've been getting those, too! Although they aren't from an actual Amazon review, but they've been ripped off from another site. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, because I have no way of contacting the person who did it since it's just a fancy name from another place! It's just so annoying, since they're obviously spam, and were plagiarized, but I can't tell the person that posted it since they linked to some random site, and I can't get to the person who actually was plagiarized. I wonder if these same spammers have ripped off OUR actual reviews more than once...

    Eileen @ ***Singing and Reading in the Rain***

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  3. I saw this same thing on another blog this morning. I haven't had it happen to me yet, but I'll be on the lookout now. These kinds of jerks have too much time on their hands & need a new hobby. Losers.

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  4. oh my god! i got one of those on my review of Messenger's Angel last week...i thought it seemed odd that someone put that much effort into a comment but i was on vacation at the time and well, you know by the time if figured something was amiss, i was more concerned about the state of my liver! but now i'm concerned and outraged!

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  5. Happened to me last week, VERY annoying. Not to mention that a couple of people have contacted me saying people left comments on their blogs that were EXACT copies of my reviews. Pisses me off!

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  6. Those are spam bots, I am pretty sure. I used to get them all the time and now they just go straight to spam.

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  7. That is so weird. I'll need to keep an eye out on my blog for this.

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  8. A lot of the more popular blogs that I follow have been receiving these comments. Some of them themselves have even been plagiarized and had bloggers e-mail them to notify them, then they'd post about it. I'd try to shoot someone an e-mail to get whatever website they're linking to taken down, as well as delete the comments from your reviews and block the user!

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  9. thats weird and I will keep my eyes peeled. Hasn't happened to my blog yet.

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  10. This hasn't luckily happened to me yet. But quite a few blogs I have visited this has also been happening to them. I hope this problem gets sorted out soon!

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  11. I have for the last couple of weeks, the weird thing is that all the comments have been made on old reviews.

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  12. OH!!! I got one of those from labelled 'Netherlands'! I'm new to blogging and kind of naively thought it was just someone being weird and posting their own mini-review on my review... that's so disturbing. Thank you for clearing this up!

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  13. That is strange! What is their point, I wonder?

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  14. I saw someone else post something similar earlier today. WTF? Thanks for bringing it to my attention, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

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  15. Tynga thanks for this. I have been getting them alot lately for the past month and have been putting them into spam. I was wondering what was going on and they include links but I never click on them. So thanks for mentioning this.

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  16. This hasn't happened to me yet thankfully but This is so weird o.O do they post the rest of the stolen review on their site? I'm trying to figure out what they could possible gain by posting stolen reviews as comments that can be deleted by the blog owner. Thanks sor sharing I'll make sure to keep an eye out.

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  17. Yeah, I don't think these are really "plagiarism" in any deliberate sense. I clean spam comments off my various blogs every day. They keep switching tactics to generate content that looks legitimate and/or something that you won't automatically delete. The only reason for the comment, however, is to post a link on your blog, and it's not even in hopes that your readers will click it. It's mostly an SEO black hat ploy. The links are always very shady and the best thing to do is just delete the comment immediately. It's really a nuisance, I finally blocked all comments from two of my blogs entirely.

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  18. I had the exact same thing happen to my on the same review.I was like WTH is going on with these silly people?

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  19. I just got a new one of those today on a review I posted in June of last year. Country was Portugal.

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  20. Yes! I got one of these a few weeks ago and it was duplicated on two of my posts. I didn't really pay attention to them except to delete but I will be watching closer now. How strange and very obnoxious!

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  21. This hasn't happened to me, but I will keep an eye out for it. I really don't get those spammers...

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  22. Yup. I have a newer blog, so I guess they don't discriminate with only popular blogs. lol. I only received it once a few weeks ago and thought it was really weird and deleted it. I'm glad I wasn't the only one. I don't remember the name of the person though.

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  23. Yes! I did find the wording weird for a comment. From Netherlands, and I tried what you said with the google search and it's really sad. It comes from another blog as well as amazon, and it appears to repeat quite a few times on various blogs!
    How bizarre...

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  24. Yes! I received some strange review-comments in the past few weeks and found it a bit strange. They were from bloggers and not from spambots though, so I kept them. I never thought of googling them, but after reading your post I did, and some have definitely been stolen! How sad...

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  25. I have been getting the same ones!!! I was thinking it was spam, but they sounded like they really had read the book I was reviewing, so I kind of wrote it off. I'm so glad you figured this out! I guess I'll mark them as spam from now on!

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  26. That really is quite bizarre. I have bizarre comments all the time on my blog, spam mostly and I've noticed some like this -- I'm trying to figure out the reason for it.

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  27. I think they are trying to fool people/filters into thinking they are legitimate comments by using someone's review/thoughts on an actual book. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all bots programmed to past in random text from Amazon or other blogs in order to try and get their comment through.

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  28. It's kind of weird, because sooner or later someone is going to notice. Just like you did. It might be a bot? But I will be on the lookout regardless! Thanks for the heads up!

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  29. We've had similar comments but they seem to make it into the spam folder now. If you look at the IP address, they may be coming from the same place.

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  30. I get them all the time as well. I really think they're Spam bots or something similar. I reported them as Spam once before and I havent gotten any sense.

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  31. Super strange, they've definitely become more prevalent lately. I've just been marking them as spam because it was pretty clear they were fishy. Still, very weird... I don't know how those spam bots do it, but it's a very strange and shady way to appear legitimate, I guess.

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  32. They left reviews on my reviews, too!!
    Same thing happend on my blog and it was on 2 of Kresley Cole's books I reviewed. It was a definite spam thing :/
    Thanks for bringing this to my attention, now I will watch for more.

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  33. Yep, I got one yesterday! I contacted the original reviewer to let her know.

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  34. Okay, this is the second time ive heard of this. It isn't that hard to write a comment saying nice review or what you thought of it. God, people are dumb. That or lazy. Thanks for letting everyone know.

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  35. Evie Seo at Bookish reported the same thing today only it was her review that got hijacked. I don't get it. Sometimes my comments sound like I'm retarded but at least I write them myself. Weird.

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  36. I got this too on my blog! I had mine from someone called UK and Brasil as well!! I had no idea about this. I just thought they were commenting! *sigh* So, disturbing and a waste of time...not to mention frustrating that people actually have the nerve to steal something other people put time and effort into!

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  37. Yes! I've gotten two of these one from "Portugal" an another from "Italy". And they link back to these really weird political propaganda blogs with one post. I've removed and flagged them as spam. I think thats probably the best we can do

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  38. Evie from Bookish also had something similar happen to her. She posted about it on her blog the other day. So weird and not cool. :(

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  39. Yes, me too! I actually doubted it was spam, but now it's obvious.

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  40. my blog has been hit with these things lately too. If anyone figures out how to stop it please post about it!

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  41. WOW I had no idea so many of us were getting them! I wasnt convinced it was a bot at first because they stole reviews matching the ones the were commenting on, but i now think it is a bot.

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  42. Ooo I have had those comments on my blog a lot, and like Bookaholic Cat stated, on the older reviews. But I have not noticed a link in them, do you really think I should delete them? Some were strange, but others just complimentary, and agreeing to my review. But always with country names.

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  43. This happened to me once! It was the first time for me, so my reaction was to reply linking to the source of who they copied their comment from. It was really weird. Next time I think I'll just delete it altogether.

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  44. {sigh} I have had numerous 'review copied' comments lately as well and they are instantly deleted because a friend who works for an Internet provider mentioned that they could possibly be connected to or contain a virus if a link is attached.. Not sure what these people actually achieve out of the spam..

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  45. I had one once, on an old review and I ask a friend she said it was like a spam and I needed to delete all of them. so disturbing...

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  46. Weird! I already received a couple of those strange comments.. I decided to delete the last one, because it was full of spoilers. I think I'll go and delete the others as well. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one, because I had no idea what to think about it.

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  47. That is truly bizarre, Tynga! I haven't experienced any comments like that myself, but I can see from the comments on this post and others are in the same boat.

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  48. I've gotten so many of these comments! It's crazy! I thought it was just me. D:

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  49. I've gotten dozens over the last few weeks - they are just spam plain and simple - by using legitimate text they hope to bypass spam filters but are usually picked up by the IP address. They link to phishing sites loaded with trojans so just mark as spam and delete them.

    Shelleyrae @ Book'd out

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