Nov
18
UPC Spam? You’ve got to be kidding!
It had to happen, spammers are trying to add UPC spam to ShopSavvy via Google Base. Scan Kleenex and get an iron (or worse). We hope that these sort of ‘fake’ results for scanned items are an anomaly, but they have our attention. Scores of local and online retailers have contacted us about getting ‘on’ ShopSavvy. We settled on Google Base as the standard way smaller online or local retailers could get their items on ShopSavvy. I wrote about it here: How to get your items on ShopSavvy. The good news ANYONE can get their items to show up as online or local results, the bad news is that ANYONE can add anything to Google Base. The openness of the platform means that it is open to spammers and jokesters.
We are in the process of creating what amounts to a spam filter for UPC data. The system will be fairly simple allowing for a white list (trusted retailers who use Google Base), a grey list (retailers who use Google Base, meeting a certain set of electronic data criteria we develop) and a black list (retailers who don’t meet our criteria or those we KNOW are bad actors). So instead of working on cool new features this month, we will be fighting the SPAMMERS! Again, thanks for the feedback…
You just need a master barcode database to query against.
http://gepir.gs1.org/V31/xx/gtin.aspx?Lang=en-US
Comment by Noble Long — November 19, 2008 @ 6:21 pm
The problem with GS1 is that it is opt-in only. Each manufacturer has to allow you to access their UPCs. Most don’t mind, but there are tens of thousands - lots of phone calls. Working our way through, but darn it takes a long time.
Comment by Alexander Muse — January 10, 2009 @ 8:28 pm
[...] have talked about UPC spam before. Retailers aren’t perfect. Sometimes they will enter the UPC of one item in [...]
Pingback by Big in Japan - Developers of ShopSavvy or Shop Savvy » Blog Archive » What if you scan an item and shows the wrong item or price? — February 26, 2009 @ 8:17 am