One of the world’s top 10 email spammers was just arrested - Robert Alan Soloway, 27, is accused of using networks of compromised “zombie” computers to send out millions upon millions of spam e-mails. (story and quotes via Miami Herald)

A federal grand jury returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

Holy hot damn!

Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called “zombies” because owners typically have no idea their machines have been infected.

He continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and the operator of a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment, prosecutors said.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Wednesday that the case is the first in the country in which federal prosecutors have used identity theft statutes to prosecute a spammer for taking over someone else’s Internet domain name. Soloway could face decades in prison, though prosecutors said they have not calculated what guideline sentencing range he might face.

The investigation began when the authorities began receiving hundreds of complaints about Soloway, who had been featured on a list of known spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organization.

And this… this is the part that really frosts my you-know-what:

Soloway used the networks of compromised computers to send out unsolicited bulk e-mails urging people to use his Internet marketing company to advertise their products, authorities said.

People who clicked on a link in the e-mail were directed to his Web site. There, Soloway advertised his ability to send out as many as 20 million e-mail advertisements over 15 days for $495, the indictment said.

After having worked with so many clients who have fallen for stuff like this, or variations of it, it just makes me crazy because people can’t help but think that all “Internet marketing companies” practice this kind of behavior! Never, ever have I worked for or participated in email spam, nor have I (or any company I’ve worked for) offered to spam people for some ridiculously “low” price. Same goes for directory submissions, links, or anything else related to online marketing.

I feel like people like him are pushing miracle pills that just don’t work. It makes me so mad, and now that he’s been caught and arrested - I’m thrilled.

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I’m sitting here scanning through my feedreader on this lovely Memorial Day (waiting for the grill to get cleaned up and ready to use) and I found this post by Andy Beal (oops!) Jeremy Luebke of Marketing Pilgrim about preparing your business to be able to survive without you. In it, Jeremy points to a super inspiring post by QuadsZilla over at SEO Black Hat. (Don’t worry, I’m not changing hats…)

I think it’s the goal of many a business owner to be less “hands on” and more “executive”. I think that no matter what your current situation, if that’s not one of your goals, it should be. Sure, doing the work yourself ensures that it gets done the way you want it to - but sometimes you need to let go and have faith in others to do their jobs the way you want them to. After all, if an employee anywhere doesn’t do their job, they get in trouble. They don’t do it enough and they get fired. So why would they want to be that way?

It’s not feasible for every business to start off with a full staff. Freelancers are great for part-time or contractual work, and in this day and age it’s almost easier to outsource work than it is to manage a brick-and-mortar office with schedules and insurance and unemployment and all that mess.

In terms of preparing your business to function without you (be it due to an illness, or maybe you’re in the military, or just that you feel like becoming more “executive” than “hands on”) I think Andy hit the nails right on their heads. These are some things I myself plan to work on.

• Create a will and a living will outlining my desires for the business.
• Put everything under an LLC/Corporation so I am only a stock holder and not an owner. Should I die, the only thing that must be willed to a family member is my stock. Domains, Adsense, etc do not have to be transfered to a new owner.
• Create a living document that is updated quarterly with all the companies assets like domains, hosting accounts, revenue accounts, both business and personal email accounts, etc (with logins for each) laid out in plain english. This document will remain in both the hands of my family lawyer and a safety deposit box.
• Create another document outlining the day to day operations of all websites and future plans. Describe how they operate, what systems they are built upon, and and detailed technical specifications whether obvious or not.
• Slowly wean myself off doing the day to day operations such as content creation, link building, user moderation, server maintenance, etc by hiring freelancers or in house employees if money permits. Start to work “on” my business and not “in” my business.

Like Jeremy, I feel that creating a document outlining day to day operations of all sites and future plans is one of the most vital items in this list. As well as a document that’s updated quarterly that lists all assets like domains, accounts, and access to everything laid out in plain English.

I know that right now, there is no individual other than myself with information or access to any of this stuff, and honestly - these posts sort of scared me a little. I’ve not only invested my money and time into this business, but I haven’t laid out plans for the business to continue in my absence, so that my family or anyone who works for me could continue to grow and profit from it.

So I’ve decided - my plan for tomorrow is to get my business more on track with my becoming an owner and executive. I’m not planning on getting sick or having an untimely death - but my plans do include taking some nice, well deserved vacations and NOT bringing my laptop with me. I owe it to my clients to have them continue to get the service they rely on my company for when I’m not around, just as much as I owe it to myself to just relax a little more.

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You know, sometimes I forget that there are people who really have no idea what a blog is, much less know why they should want to be a blogger. The first thing I tell them is usually something like:

Blogs are like online journals. You can write about whatever your heart desires - be it news, fashion, television, work (but be careful!), your interesting or funny life - and use it as a tool to meet people, develop your own writing skills, start a community, you name it. You can even make a little money from it!

Of course - that last bit is the only thing people really “hear”, but what gets me sometimes - what really brings me back to Earth - is when people say, “Okay, but how do I blog?”

I do a lot of sites for actors, comics, and reality show celebrities. Most of these people are computer savvy enough to check their email and play a few games, maybe write a word document, or use excel for spreadsheets. But rarely do they understand what blogging is all about.

But you see, that’s the beauty in my job. I get to teach them.

It’s pretty well-known that I’m a die-hard WordPress fan. I use nothing else to build sites anymore, regardless of whether there is to be a blog on the site or not. It just makes life so much easier all the way around. So usually my first step is simply teaching people how to log in to their admin section, and what tabs they need to click on to create, edit, and maintain the content on their sites.

I love it - I can hear the tension in their voices over the phone as I walk them through the login process. “Anticipation is where it’s at, you know. Everything after that is gravy.” (A quote from my favorite comic - Lewis Black) My client sits there anxiously clicking on their keys to log in, and I’m hearing this pressure build up in their voices as I bring them into their admin and get them to the “Write Post” page.

They begin to write a sample post. Title… content… category checkbox. As they’re doing this, I can hear the release of tension in their voices. “Oh my god this IS easy!” I hear. I tell them it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you give in and let go - it’s a blast, and you never forget it.

They click the “Publish” button and then “view site” at the top of the page - and WHAMMO! Now I hear the smile (yes, I can hear smiles on the phone) and inevitably the word that comes out of their mouths next is, “Wowwwww…” followed by something like “Too cool!” or “I did it!”

This folks, is the best part. The gratitude, the realization on their part that they can do this, the joy of them seeing their own words in virtual print. I LOVE MY JOB!

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When: Saturday, June 9th, 7-10pm
Where: The “Speakeasy” at the Gin Room
442 Amsterdam Ave. (between 81st & 82nd Street)
How: Sponsored by the lovely folks at Chikita - free munchies, and free drink tickets for the first 100 people through the door!
Why: Meet up with Darren, myself, and other bloggers! This comes on the tail of the FOOA conference happening on Thursday and Friday, and if it’s anything like last time, should prove to be a great experience! (Plus, you have the potential to win a few door prizes if you bring along a business card!)

Please, PLEASE advertise this on your blog, even if you’re not from NY, not planning on attending, or what have you. I promised the folks at Eat Drink & Be Merry that I’d get them lots of blog traffic - so please help me to not let them down!!

That said, I’d love to see you there - please let me know if you plan to attend! (And head over to Darren’s to let him know as well!)

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Okay, so I’ve let a bit of time pass by on this, but mostly because I wanted to see what everyone else was saying before I opened my yap, and I wanted to see how long the buzz lasted (for the record, less than a week). Matt Cutts has asked the internet masses to now REPORT sites that use paid advertising.

I’m a huge fan of Matt’s but this is getting a little extreme even for my tastes. While I agree that paid links should be acknowledged to the site visitors (as can be seen in the “sponsors” link on my sidebar), and that transparency and disclosure in terms of paid reviews and affiliate links is the “high road”, I think asking the masses to report sites that have paid links on them is a bit too much like encouraging tattle-taling in kindergarteners.

In fact, please go read Matt’s post about hidden links, because this is something that I’m strongly against, and have had far too many clients come to me with these types of links in their sites - without even knowing they were there. (They were likely put there by a less-than-honorable designer/SEO prior to them coming to me.) Seriously, even if you think you know what I mean by “hidden links” - go read this one. This is a relatively “new” way of doing it.

However I’m not a fan of his other posts on the topic. For one thing, it’s been mentioned already that morning radio dj’s don’t say “this was a paid review” when they talk about their latest cellphone plan or their new favorite restaurant in your local metro area, but everyone knows that the reason he said it was to get some free upgrade or an extra bottle of wine with dinner. No one ever comes out and says that Coca-Cola is a paid sponsor for TV’s “American Idol”, however you can’t miss those gigantic red cups that the judges drink from during the show.

Of course, there’s a retort to that, because that’s television/radio and not print media. Newspapers have clear, defined ad sections. Magazines that publish full page ads that are designed to look like they’re part of the ‘zine but are solely for advertising will put “ADVERTISEMENT” somewhere along the binding or bottom of the page. (Yes, it’s usually in light grey lettering, but it’s there. Oh no! Isn’t that the same as “hidden text”? For shame!)

But which side of the line does the internet fall, and why is Google trying to tell us what we can and can’t have on our websites?

As has been quoted several times already, this is directly off Google’s site (Google’s Webmaster Guidelines):

• Make pages for users, not for search engines.
• Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

• I don’t see how including paid advertising on a site can affect users negatively if it’s disclosed. I also don’t see how reporting sites that allow paid advertising TO A SEARCH ENGINE follows this guideline. I guess this one’s up for interpretation? Depends on what the Big G is trying to crank down on whether or not it matters what we do?
• Advertising for relevant companies related to your site’s niche can help your users by giving them another resource to find more information. Just because you get money for linking to a product doesn’t mean that you don’t believe in said product. In fact, I don’t allow links to anything unrelated or anything I don’t believe will help my site’s visitors. And yes, I would do it if search engines didn’t exist. I like money just like everyone else.

I think if Google wants to tackle a problem, they need to focus on the sites that trick people. Sites that use doorway pages, scripts, redirects, that sort of thing. There are SO many other, much more “heinous” tactics being used than paying for ads. (Here we go, back to TV/Radio/Magazines again… if no one advertised, the networks and publications would crumble.)

Can’t they just give us some commented code to use around the ad blocks that would signal the spiders as to what we’re doing, but not punish us for doing so? (Note: I can’t honestly say one way or the other whether I’d comply if they intended to use the commented code to punish me… that’s like telling a child to go “cut a switch” for a whippin’. But if there were a guarantee that using it would NOT punish my rankings, then I might.)

Note to Google: Not EVERYONE buys links for the purpose of getting the PR juice. Some people do think of it as another form of traditional advertising!!!! Why punish everyone for the sins of the bad seeds?

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