Bloggers Beware: Award-Winning W.Va. Site Hijacked
Written by Jason Keeling on July 20, 2008
West Virginia-based marketing firm Maple Creative has been sharing professional insights and gaining national recognition via its “Marketing Genius” blog since 2004. In June, Advertising Age recognized the blog within its Power 150 listing of the most influential media and advertising blogs on the Internet. This week, however, Internet cyber-jackers overtook the “Marketing Genius” site and stripped its original content.
Maple Creative’s award-winning blog is now infected with solicitous ads that may be part of a phishing-type scam, according to Skip Lineberg, chief creative officer. He is warning the public not to click on any of the site’s links at present. “Even though I knew what to look for, they still duped me, and I lost my domain,” admits Lineberg. “I am urging all bloggers to be extra careful. I have always been very skeptical of email scams and bogus claims.”
Lineberg says the hackers may have portrayed themselves as Blogger.com representatives, and over the course of several correspondences, they somehow gained control of the “Marketing Genius” blog. Maple Creative is working to regain control of the site, which was hosted by Blogger.com, a subsidiary of Google, Inc. Lineberg contacted Google several days ago to assist in confirming what occurred and helping to rectify the situation. At present, he is still waiting for a response.
“We are going to use this as an opportunity to recover, rejuvenate and re-launch our marketing blog,” Lineberg promised. “Let me be clear. We will not be deterred by this incident. Instead, we will harness the power of social networks and call upon the tremendous voice of all our friends across the online community to help us prevail. ‘Marketing Genius’ will be up again and stronger than ever.”
For now, readers are advised not to visit the site given spammers may have placed malware upon the domain marketinggenius.blogspot.com. Maple Creative plans to notify the public when their marketing blog is re-launched.
Update | 7/23/08 | The Marketing Genius blog has been restored to its original form, with the assistance of Google Inc. The process was expedited after the Charleston Daily Mail contacted Google for comment, according to Skip Lineberg, who provides initial details of the situation here.
Posted in Business, Media, West Virginia
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July 24th, 2008 at 12:29 am
OMG that’s horrible! I would be so mad. My sympathies to the fine folks at Maple Creative. I’ve been there before and they do have a good blog.
I’m going to post a link to your blog on mine about this because I and most of the bloggers I know do use blogger. Please keep us updated on when Maple Creative is safe to visit again.
TOC
July 24th, 2008 at 8:21 am
OMG! Alert the press! Send in the royal guards! Call the governor and tell him I said “OOOWWWWWWWW!!!”
Why not just delete the spam, change your password and move on?
Sounds like someone was dumb enough to fall for a scam picking information. Warn them not to send any Nigerian royalty their bank account number.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:59 am
The good news is that Google has restored ‘Marketing Genius from Maple Creative’ to its former glory.
The reason the url is important to Maple Creative is that they have spend years building a blog and a online reputation, only to have spammers to take it over and to spread spam and possibly malware.
Google worked pretty quickly, for a large corporation, to fix this problem. Hats off to Google, and hats over to Skip and the fine people over at Maple Creative. They do great work, and they have a wonderful blog.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
[...] Jason Keeling helped Maple Creative develop this statement, which has also been released at the ABetterWestVirginia.com [...]
July 31st, 2008 at 11:54 am
Wow… not good. I blame Ohio.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Jason
Thank you so much for your support and guidance throughout this troubling episode. As we discovered, the power of the social network was a primary factor in getting this matter resolved to our satisfaction. Plus, your encouragement was a real boost when I most needed it.
Skip
August 16th, 2008 at 3:16 am
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