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Are you being “Cyveilled”?

Big Brother’s bots have descended upon my blog. Searching through my logs I came across this IP many times over: 63.148.99.237. Turns out it belongs to a company called Cyveillance. The company is hired by organizations like the RIAA, the Associated Press, and Fortune 50 companies to monitor for brand abuse, trademark violations, and copyright infringement. WTF? I didn’t realize I was up to anything sinister enough to be surveilled.

According to the company’s web site, among the evils Cyveillance searches for are:

  • “Activism, including planned boycotts and demonstrations,” and
  • “Legal Threats, including solicitation of members for class action suits.”

Their bot commits abuse of its own, too, according to information I found here and here.

My Textpattern upgrade will now include a modification to my .htaccess file blocking their IP. Buh-bye, Cyveillance.