d_s_klein{at}yahoo.com wrote:
> On Oct 23, 12:56 am, "Robert Miles"

> wrote:
>> "Doug Miller"  wrote in message
>>
>> news:BgSLk.3105$Ei5.2059{at}flpi143.ffdc.sbc.com...> In article
, Jason Zheng
>>>  wrote:
>>>> Best way to stop abuse from google groups posters is to send your
>>>> complaint email to groups-ab...{at}google.com
>>> On *my* planet, Google completely ignores complaints.
>>> What planet are *you* on?
>> .
>> I'm on Earth, where Google Groups eventually acts against
>> complaints that match their definition of spam - which may
>> not match yours - but often takes complaints about each
>> instance of the spam for about 6 weeks to do it.  I doubt
>> if frequent posts with "spam" in the title, but no ads in the
>> body of the posts, would match their definition.
>>
>> They are, however, much more active at blocking anything
>> that matches their definition from reaching anyone who
>> used Google Groups to read the posts.
> 
> You say it takes Google 6 weeks to act, yet the life-span of the spam
> is a couple of days.  See the problem now?
> 
> In my experience, Google has never done a thing to curb spam.  In some
> cases, they do less than nothing.

I don't see spam as much of an issue, either in my email or in
the newsgroups I read.  If anything, it's on the decline.

Maybe it's time to chill out about spam...

> 
> Google is the new evil.  Just as MS decided how people were to use
> computers and forced that model on people, Google is deciding on how
> people are to use The Internet, and is forcing that model on all their
> users.  Argh.
> 

Actually, Google presents a fairly wide range of experimental tools
and methods to interact with the Internet, many of them quite "open"
to adaptation by interested users.

When *any* player is chosen by more than 3/4 of the market, they
naturally acquire significant influence on the direction of the
technology.  Google at least lets you "vote" about how you'd like
to see things go.  It's hard to see how they could be more responsive
to their huge user base than they are.

It's easy to forget that success is as much a straitjacket as an
enabler--any change you make will annoy almost as many people (since
its a change) as it pleases.  Put another way, the price of success
is compatibility.  ;-)

We should hope that Microsoft will become equally responsive!  ;-)

-michael

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