Monday, July 2, 2012

I Really Hate Dongo.org

There, I said it.

For years, that domain has been pointing people toward this blog for no reason at all. There’s no contextual connection between that domain and this one.

In all likelihood, Dongo visitors who land here are disappointed, perhaps even pissed off, and I don’t blame them… I probably would be, too, but it’s not something that I have any control over.

If you landed here in search of vacation properties in southern Europe or Africa and found something completely unexpected… GET ANGRY!  But not at me… go after the webmasters at Dongo.

I don’t even know what their game is, but it’s not mine.  If you got pointed here and liked what you see, you’re welcome to be here, comment, browse, whatever… I’m happy for the accident.

If you landed here from a Dongo link and didn’t like what you found, I encourage you to raise hell with them, because I think you’re in the majority.

I want people to visit this blog because they want to, not because some freakin’ robot pointed them here against anyone’s will but theirs.

With great respect for your choices,

Scott

3 comments:

Elena Nilaver said...

Scott, you probably have already seen this before, but I'll copy it here anyway because it's what I found when I did a little search regarding your post, and I find that what this organization does is disturbing and upsetting. I don't know what can be done, but I felt that this should be shared.

"THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

Solving the Puzzle of the Image Thief
So I caught on to the idea that someone had scoured my entire blog for hours, taking each and every photo on this blog. I have found them out - the website is called www.dongo.org.

They have mentioned my site on their website, and so someone has seen my web address, and has ventured to my site after leaving www.dongo.org. The reason I know this is because I have a I.P address identifier on this blog and I can see who enters this blog and where they were prior to coming to this website.

It appears that "Dongo.org" is just one of many website runs by this Belgium set up, that takes people's images, sets up random websites, and then gets money for everytime someone clicks on an image, or heads to their website.

In laymans terms, they steal images, label them as their own, when Google images does a search for images of a particular topic, people see the pictures come up as their own, people click on them, it goes to their website, and then they earn money from advertisers and sponsors who pay them based on how many clicks they receive."


"Legal Letter
Dear SearchPictures.Net and Other Entities Associated,

On or around 20 August 2010, someone acting on your behalf or as your agent entered the website entitled "www.kateonthebike.blogspot.com". Over a period of seven hours, there is evidence that shows that you collected up to 800 images from this website. These images have been found to be on your website and a series of other connected to you.

This is an infringement of the domain name holder's intellectual property rights and you are on notice that the domain name holder is currently seeking further legal advice with regards to these breaches.

We ask that you cease and desist immediately from using, referring or exploiting the domain name holder's intellectual property rights, being copyright in the images that the holder has in the images.

In the event that you do not cease and desist, the domain name holder will not hesitate to commence legal action against you with respect to the above breaches.

Yours Sincerely

Domain Name Holder
www.kateonthebike.blogspot.com


POSTED BY KATEONTHEBIKE AT 12:17 AM 0 COMMENTS"

Leslie said...

I was checking my analytics this evening and noticed they had once again popped up as a referral. I don't keep my blog so private that I don't share it with others but it is unlisted and unsearchable so hackers like that make me want to just share "by invite only". I went on their site, right-clicked and sure enough my blog name was among probably a few hundred. ??? I tried writing code in my blog tonight to block their IP address. We'll see if it works...

Jerre said...

If you want to find out who owns the "dongo.org" site:
http://whois.domaintools.com/dongo.org