I resolved it with a .htaccess rule:

# STOP BITACLE!
RewriteEngine On
deny from 212.22.59.251
deny from bitacle.org

Thanks for linking to my angry reaction on the Bitacle theft. I have this morning warned Google that Bitacle abuses our posts for there own to archieve money from them. Google has reacted that the will search for a solution. So hopefully this big search engine will do something against the thiefs from Bitacle.

Read this also, if you don't have red it:
http://lutrov.com/blog/80/

Also, fyi to anyone looking to block bitacle, as of yesterday, they used the IP [deleted at Valerie's request -- Allan] in addition to the one Niccolo gave. They used that first one allllll month long until the day I posted about them and then they used the second!

So I believe we should "out" them, find hacks to foil them, sue them where possible, pressure Google into vetting AdSense clients better, pressure ISPs, reveal their identities….

Ten of us protesting make no difference. A thousand of us, ten thousand of us, protesting, searching out, hacking every shred of their online life… that's a different story.

I'll let you know how it goes…

The more I think over this splogger problem, the more I think it's futile and even counterproductive to try to hunt down and shut down individual sploggers.

They're not the real problem. They're just opportunists. The REAL problem is that Google, Yahoo, and other online ad network providers have their programs set up in such a way that actively *encourages* sploggers.

It does no good to stamp out a few cockroaches. You have to stop them from breeding.

I just wrote more about this at Contentious: http://tinyurl.com/rvp7t

Also, regarding the wordpress anti-leech script — wouldn't that approach prevent legitimate syndication from a site or feed? It's a tradeoff. I'll have to look into that to understand it better.

Thanks!

- Amy Gahran

They seem to be a project based in Spain that aggregates blog feeds and provides search/view functions on those feeds. I've been reading the actual Bitacle site now (homepage is an AJAX aggregator/home page, ala Netvibes) and exploring their blog in Spanish (I happen to be fluent). It does not look like a splog operation at all. I think a lot of us in the English speaking blogosphere jumped the gun on this one.

In fact, I think the language barrier is a big problem here. A blogger from Cordoba, Argentina recently posted (in Spanish) something about how all the English language blogs are hyper-critical, while Spanish blogs generally praise the service.

I'm not trying to defend everything Bitacle is doing, I'm certainly no fan of the blatent Adsense placements, which in some cases appear to violate CC licenses. And the folks running the project are certainly shooting themselves for not offering at least some English documentation of what the site is about (their English blog is empty). But it seems that the service is basically a blog search engine/personalized home page that then lets you browse feeds.

In summary, I don't think Bitacle is without its (serious?) problems, but it's definitely not a fly-by-night hit-n-run splog operation. And those are the folks who deserve the 8th circle.

(I'm posting this comment on a couple other blogs as well, to try to help the conversation a bit.)

I write and speak and consult for a living. That's a lot of fun for me, and (I dearly hope) a boon for my clients. But it's a commercial, private, transaction.

I write here for fun and community. I charge nothing for what I write — much of which is "memo to self" — and am frankly agog when other bloggers pick up my stuff. So when Bitacle comes along, slapping ads all over my "for fun and community" writing, they are ripping me (and my readers) off.

If you are so friendly with the Bitacle gang, encourage them to write. They haven't responded to anyone's posts or phone calls. Until they do, they are sploggers, and you are their apologist.