"Special Gift" not so special to me

In a recent comment post, a blogger known as "special gift" wanted to inform me that they used one of my articles on their blog.

That's flattery in the highest form. I was eager to pop on over to the site to see my name in "print", mostly because I've had a rough week, and a little bit of feel goodism is good for the soul.

When I got there, the entire article was on the front page for all the world to see....

...well, not quite. This blogger failed to include any of the by-line or link information that would give me credit for writing the article.

They did cite the source of the article, but didn't include the link, which is a violation of the terms of service for ezinearticles.com.

To make matters worse, there's no way to contact this blogger, because their profile is private, and no comments are allowed on the blog.

Hmmm... What's an author to do?

This problem is pervasive on the net. Uncited, misquoted and sometimes reconfigured content made to look original is an unfortunate "cost of doing business" online. Companies like ezinearticles.com can't police the thousands of people that publish content, but would-be publishers should use common sense. With programs like copyscape widely available, it's getting easier to find these plagarists, but they're popping up like weeds all over the net.

So, special gift, if you're listening, you say you're into marketing and sales - what you've done is a BAD bit of marketing. You've removed the pertinent contact info which just lacks moral character, in my opinion, but even worse, you're virtually passing this off as your own content, which is theft when you get down to brass tacks.

I would appreciate either removing the post, or better yet, reinstating the article in it's ENTIRETY - with links and credits included.

That would be a better example of marketing.

A public apology would be even BETTER.