Six Apart to launch free antispam service for blogs

Six Apart is launching a free, semi-open-source filter for blog comment spam.

TypePad AntiSpam is the same antispam technology that's currently built into TypePad, but the company is making it available to all who want it, with no charge and no usage restrictions. The service is in semi-beta: "The code is not beta but the (open source framework around it) is," Six Apart CEO Chris Alden also said.

There will be TypePad AntiSpam plug-ins available for Six Apart's blog platforms, TypePad and Movable Type, as well as for Wordpress blogs.

The TypePad AntiSpam framework is open source. Anyone can muck around in the code that integrates the engine, repackage it, and so on. The heurestics and rules in the engine itself, however, run on Six Apart's servers and are not open. Opening them would give spammers everything they need to break through the system, Alden told me. The standard antispam engine for Wordpress, Akismet, is also closed.

However, Alden said, if someone has their own antispam engine, they could plug it into the open-source framework.

TypePad AntiSpam plugs into TypePad as well as Wordpress.

(Credit: Six Apart)

Web 2.0 blog TechCrunch has been testing this antispam service, Alden said.

[bernie.mcginn]

cool!

[schellack]

So this is doing the same thing as WordPress's Akismet, then, reinventing the wheel, so to speak? The Akismet API is also Open Source, and already has a whole bunch of other implementations (see http://akismet.com/development/), including one or two for Moveable Type.

[njmp]

@schellack, I think the main difference is that Akismet isn't free for commercial use... Typepad Antispam is free for whatever you want to use if for... pretty cool imo.
Check out Akismet's pricing:
http://akismet.com/commercial/

I think there are also limits on volume for regular akismet users. Chances are those regular users won't ever hit that volume, but who knows.