Last week the BBC published an article about spam and a video accompanying it unfairly shows one of my websites Free UK Stuff, while talking about spam. I am pleased to say that after publishing this blog post and having received a number of blog posts (see list at the bottom of this message), forum posts and folk filing complaints on reading the article, the BBC made contact on the Friday of last week after receiving these complaints and reading this blog and others and removed the video later that day.

Today the BBC made contact to say they have agreed to publish a statement that I requested to be put at the bottom of the news article in question, so I could show suppliers, merchants and site users should they have any questions or doubts about what the video contained.

Ian a Journalist from the BBC who handled the investigation, removal and getting the statement published about this article is the type of person I kind of expect all BBC employees to be. He was very professional, didn’t take sides and while he had to report to his bosses before action was taken, he clearly done so quickly and called me back when he said he would, so I thank him for understanding the matter at hand and dealing with it swiftly.

Hopefully next time when a technology article is published an editor or journalist will be involved who understands the issues raised in the article and any accompanying video before they get published. Indeed it was pointed out in the past that some really good articles have been published on the BBC News about the very important subject of spam and how it gets in the way of legitimate communications between site owners and their members. The person who invents the total solution to spam will be a very rich person indeed.

Here is a list of blog articles posted in support, if I have missed anyone out please get in contact and I will edit this post.

BBC Spam Email Experiment Badly Researched

The BBC hasn’t a clue

The BBC Make Spam Out Of Fish!

BBC Investigation Into Spam, Poorly Researched?

“Clarke Duncan sold my daughter viagra”: BBC Reports

Lies, Damn Lies and the BBC (my personal blog)

Statement on BBC News Video featuring Free UK Stuff

And the A4U Forum where lots of messages of support where also posted in the thread BBC spam article featuring aff sites.

Thanks again for the support, shows what can be done when Affiliates stand up for each other, happy days 🙂