On 4/1/2018 7:10 PM, Kevin A. McGrail wrote:
No, I don't think it's an April Fool's trick though it is possible. They announced this a day or 2 ago. See https://www.cloudconnectcommunity.com/ccc/ls/community/g-suite-feature-ideas/post/6320666165116928 and https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links/
I have been in talks with Google about this, sharing with them specific data and stats. My contact there sent me an email about this a day or two ago referencing that announcement - I just hadn't had time to review it yet. So this is for real.
The data I had compiled and shared with them that I gathered about a month ago... was devastating. I can't make that report public because the spammers were OFTEN sending a one-to-one ratio of a single individual google shortener per recipient address. Therefore, making that data public would have revealed many spamtrap addresses (both mine and those of 3rd party spam feeds). Another problem with that data... is that I was finding 10s of thousands of google shortners that were banging on the same dozens spammer's domains - and it would be so trivial for Google to look for that pattern and then just wipe out all of THOSE many shortners that were redirecting to one of these dozen spammers' domains. At the same time, the vast majority of these shortners were persisting for weeks and weeks with no sign that Google was hardly lifting a finger to terminate them. In fact, in that initial report, 95+% of shortners used by spammers were persisting for weeks on end, and 80% of those were using one of those 12 spammer' domains.
HOWEVER... I started compiling new data few days ago, and it looks MUCH better now. I'm not done putting that report together, but early indications show that something has recently changed for the better - but that there is still significant room for improvement, but they are at least headed in the right direction. But that report is still under construction.
So I think the pressure on Google, along with some of the data I provided them... might have helped? Or maybe that was just "one straw that broke the camel's back"? Either way, I'm happy that this seems to be getting fixed, or they are at least headed in the right direction.
-- Rob McEwen https://www.invaluement.com +1 (478) 475-9032
