Sphinn - Is Tynt Stealing Site Owner’s Content & Refusing to be Blocked?

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Is Tynt Stealing Site Owner’s Content & Refusing to be Blocked?

Went Hot: September 11, 2008 - 2:59 am
Posted By: EricLander 72 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.ericlander.com)
Category: Other Social Media

Tynt is out as a private beta service, and it's allowing anyone to get an account and start marking up sites. The trouble is, URLs are being indexed and webmasters have no ability to block or opt out of this "contextual relevance and dialog" service.

11 Comments

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Comments

from johnandrews 72 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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I don't think this is any different than a proxy hijack, which is tough to block (you need the IP range). If anyone has a better way, do tell.

from IncrediBILL 71 days ago #

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John, it's not a proxy hijack except for a few sad cases, it's a revenue hijack.

To stop the proxy hijack is a simple case of SE validation using reverse/forward round trip DNS checking available 2 years now with a few free scripts to use so people still getting hijacked deserve what they get.

Stopping Tynt is easy as it has many tells, you can block them with their proxy information HTTP_VIA, or the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR which appears to be a NAT using IANA #s instead of the actual visitor IPs, and a few other things as it leaves a trail like a slug.

However, the simplest thing most people can do is block these IP ranges:

Tynt Multimedia Inc. (TYNTM)
204.244.109.240 - 204.244.109.247
204.244.120.176 - 204.244.120.183

from wheel 71 days ago #

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Thanks Bill - very helpful

from kennethmoody 71 days ago #

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Thanks for the solutions posted to this problem, and thanks Eric for pointing it out. I love it when comment sections focus on solutions instead of just complaining.

from EricLander 71 days ago #

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@kennethmoody Well said, and thanks for the Sphinn and kind words too.

from scottpolk 71 days ago #

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I have a lunchtime call w/ @Tynt to go over these and other issues - I'm presenting our concerns & community reactions

Anything you would like me to add? Please email or hit me up on twitter

@scottpolk
scottpolk[at]gmail[dot]com

from miketighe 71 days ago #

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These guys are located in Calgary, met them at a democamp at the beginning of the year.

It would be interesting to see your conclusions Scott.

~mike

from derekb 71 days ago #

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Hey everyone. We've put some of our thoughts from Tynt on our blog. If you are interested, please check out http://tynt.wordpress.com/

Sincerely,

Derek Ball
CEO, Tynt

from johnandrews 71 days ago #

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@incredibill I didn't say SE proxy, but just proxy. I fail to see how it's not a proxy (?)

@derek I can't remember the name of the prior web company that did this back in like 1999.. maybe you can remind me? It was the same thing... was it Tribe? Could probably learn alot from how that was / wasn't handled and how it went.

from IncrediBILL 70 days ago #

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John, stick to competitive webmastering and leave the bots and proxys to me, K? ;)

from johnandrews 49 days ago #

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lately blocking bots is part of being competitive... wish I had a tool to do that