Someone’s been spamming comment forms on weblogs with an Amazon affiliate link to Meg, Matt and Paul’s book, "We Blog". You can see examples here, here, here and here. I noticed a lot of these links posted in response to posts about the Blogger hack, as if the publication of the book, or perhaps its mere existence, was explanation for the hack having happened.

There are also repeated references to the book being a way to make money off of weblogs. While I don’t know the specifics of their book deal, I know a decent amount about the economics of the publishing industry, and I can’t imagine they’ve made anything other than a pittance off of the work they put in.

So why is this nutcase going around promoting the book with an affiliate link? For the one or two dollars in affiliate fees? Nope. It’s because the alleged author, George Brody, is probably the same insane person who’s posted as “neu” or “neuroprosthesis” at other sites and created the Neuroprosthesis weblog. Her real name is probably Gyongyi Gaal, and she’s gone off on some weird anti-weblog rants before, though she appears to be a legitimate neuroprosthesis researcher, in addition to her weird fixation on these authors.

The affiliate code for the links uses the name “New York on Film”. A Google search of that phrase leads to the Neuroprosthesis weblog, although Google reveals that the name was only used on inbound links and does not appear in the page itself. That being said, the tone, phrasing, and sheer weirdness of the accusations is well in character for this particular crank. I’m always interested in online crazies and Neu/George/Gyongyi appears to be another one of them. I thought you might find this person’s fixation as fascinating as I do.