Skip to main content

Blogger Does Not Care About Your Telephone Number

Blogger has been using CAPTCHA verification for some time, to identify you as a person, and to make sure that you are not running a computer based script.
  • When you setup a new blog.
  • When you submit a request to have your blog unlocked after being (falsely) classified as spam.
  • When you attempt to publish too many posts in one day.
Unfortunately, spammers eventually figured out how to automate CAPTCHA processing.

Besides the problem of automated CAPTCHA solving, there's the unfortunate detail that solving a CAPTCHA isn't always the best use of one's time, in stressful situations.

Blogger / Google is constantly changing / enhancing security precautions.

Recently, Blogger improved their authentication technique. Besides / instead of using CAPTCHA verification, they now offer us the option of SMS Verification - and for some services, Voice Service based verification.

As a first choice, they will send a short text message to a mobile computer, using SMS - and we can reply from the mobile device, or type a reply code into our online display. Alternately, they will call our voice service - and an automated voice will read us a short text message, which we can then type into our online display.

In both cases, they require that we provide a "phone number", so they can contact us.

The need for phone number verification is not understood, by all blog owners.

Some blog owners are suspicious of this request - that they should provide a phone number to Blogger, just so they can setup a blog (unlock their blog, publish too actively, ...). Certain that Blogger has a nefarious need to collect their phone numbers, they protest yet another invasion of privacy.

Ignoring the unfortunate reality of the limited reliability of SMS / voice service based verification, the privacy invasion accusations are unfounded. Google only wants to use your SMS or voice based "terminal" as a temporary token, to ensure that you are a person - and not yet another hijacked computer, helping another spammer setup a new splog (unlock a locked splog, over publish another splog, ...).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Adding A Link To Your Blog Post

Occasionally, you see a very odd, cryptic complaint I just added a link in my blog, but the link vanished! No, it wasn't your imagination.

Embedded Comments And Main Page View

The option to display comments, embedded below the post, was made a blog option relatively recently. This was a long requested feature - and many bloggers added it to their blogs, as soon as the option was presented to us. Some blog owners like this feature so much, that they request it to be visible when the blog is opened, in main page view. I would like all comments, and the comment form, to be shown underneath the relevant post, automatically, for everyone to read without clicking on the number of comments link. And this is not how embedded comments work.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".