This company appears to work predominantly for corporations that are attempting to mitigate damage by people who are criticizing their practices and marketing on the internet. But there's also a group called the Rendon Group that is all about controlling public opinion on government actions that people are reporting on their site meters. Considering that the Rendon Group has contracts from BushCo to spread pro-war propaganda, it's hard to imagine that they aren't also targeting left-leaning blogs, possibly trying to circumvent productive anti-war discussion by bomb-throwing and other nonsense. Something to keep an eye out for--if you have right wing trolls that only comment on certain topics, especially if they just generate generic talking points, there's a solid chance they are a troll-for-hire.

She goes on to sayWhile most of us attempt to restrain ourselves from "feeding the trolls" many of them, in fact, could be "nourished" by the "endless stream of rightwing money".Ignore them or not, tehy have plenty of impetus to come and soil what is one of the Blogoshpere's greatest strengths - unfettered public discourse. The Troll-for-Hire is there to destroy it whatever one does.

The reference to "traditional communication mediums" catches my eye because it further reinforces how much companies and other entities rely on the MSM to "look the other way" on a panoply of issues that can curtail profits and eventually, as we saw with Ford and the Gay issue, hold them actually accountible.

Now we have Paid provacatuers roaming (should I have said "Roving"?) about despoiling, hijacking, and ruining many useful discussions.

I noticed a post from Kos recently that addressed "sockpuppets" and that banning them was the choice of how to deal with it. That is likely the best route for handling it. Kos, of course, has a one week waiting period before a person can post, which is good, but little more effective than Georgia's "No Liquor Sales on Sunday" laws. People buy on Saturday!

At Smirking Chimp threads that fall vicitm to these trolls are usually locked and the user ID, almost always begun the same date as their disasterous Post # 1, are blocked.

So, macking Traffic's fine song, "it isn't the locking that brings down a thread

it's the Low Spark of Well-Heeled Trolls".