Recently, we've seen a few problems reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, requesting return of blogs stolen from the rightful owner.
Supposedly, the "rightful" owner is the person posting the problem report. We've learned from past experiences that this may not always be the case, however.
Long ago, when a stolen blog claim was posted in the forum, we could report it to Blogger Support as a "blog theft".
In many cases, given enough patience, Blogger Engineering and Google Legal would carefully examine the blog ownership history, and eventually restore the blog to its "rightful" owner. Unfortunately, even with the most careful forensic examination, the "blog theft" claim was occasionally used by hackers, to steal other peoples blogs.
Most recently, when "blog theft" is reported, Blogger Support declines to consider the case. Considering all of the issues, we generally see that they are making a responsible business decision.
Instead of spending massive amounts of time verifying individual claims, Blogger Engineering appears to be working on overall improvements to Blogger - to encourage blog owners to not put themselves, or their accounts and blogs, in unrecoverable positions.
Any blog which contains abusive material - whether malware, porn, or spam, or illegally obtained material - can be reported using the proper complaint form. Blogs which do not contain abusive material are the property of the current owner - and Blogger / Google will respect and support the current owner.
Blog owners, claiming theft, can generally report a stolen blog as abusive - if the current content justifies that claim. Other than that, the best solution is to hire a lawyer and convince a judge to issue a court order - and require Google Legal to become involved.
The issue of Blogger account and blog recovery is a long and painful one - for many people.
Supposedly, the "rightful" owner is the person posting the problem report. We've learned from past experiences that this may not always be the case, however.
Long ago, when a stolen blog claim was posted in the forum, we could report it to Blogger Support as a "blog theft".
In many cases, given enough patience, Blogger Engineering and Google Legal would carefully examine the blog ownership history, and eventually restore the blog to its "rightful" owner. Unfortunately, even with the most careful forensic examination, the "blog theft" claim was occasionally used by hackers, to steal other peoples blogs.
Most recently, when "blog theft" is reported, Blogger Support declines to consider the case. Considering all of the issues, we generally see that they are making a responsible business decision.
Instead of spending massive amounts of time verifying individual claims, Blogger Engineering appears to be working on overall improvements to Blogger - to encourage blog owners to not put themselves, or their accounts and blogs, in unrecoverable positions.
Any blog which contains abusive material - whether malware, porn, or spam, or illegally obtained material - can be reported using the proper complaint form. Blogs which do not contain abusive material are the property of the current owner - and Blogger / Google will respect and support the current owner.
Blog owners, claiming theft, can generally report a stolen blog as abusive - if the current content justifies that claim. Other than that, the best solution is to hire a lawyer and convince a judge to issue a court order - and require Google Legal to become involved.
The issue of Blogger account and blog recovery is a long and painful one - for many people.
Comments