Podcaster Erik Marcus recently found that his podcast RSS feed had been redirected to another domain he doesn’t have control over. The hijacker demands payment or permanent agreement to terms. Marcus is seeking legal advices from this new form of Internet extortion.

Marcus has been podcasting for some time and built his listenership to 1,500 when he noticed a podcast entry for his show on Yahoo! Podcasts directed to third party website, Podkeyword. Contacting Yahoo! for about a month, no response whatsoever was given.

Apple has also picked up the wrong URL, which pointed to Podkeyword. Both Yahoo! and Apple have not yet fixed the URL.

He contacted Podkeyword, which in turn asked for ransom or permanent agreement to its terms.

This form of hijack involves no security vulnerabilities on the podcast server side. It merely involves finding a target podcast, duplicate the information and point the podcast RSS feed to a new domain, instead of the podcaster’s official URL.

We certainly expect there are regulations regarding this technology issue, including intellectual property law for podcasts and podcast RSS feed.

Source: eWeek.
See also: Podcast Hosting.

To easily receive updates on podcast and podcasting articles, subscribe to Podcasting Scout today.