Iframes were very helpful on Squidoo for making the lenses more useful and hosting email sign up forms and other tools.
Like about everything else on the web the porno perverts have destroyed it for everyone else as they sought to use Squidoo for their own sick purposes.
Here’s the announcement.
Iframes
When we built Squidoo, we knew there’d be no way we could keep up with you guys in developing all the modules you’d need. Although we knew they’d become a problem eventually, we decided to allow the iframe HTML tag for the time being, because it gave you a powerful tool for customizing your lenses. Unfortunately, the time has come for us to disable iframes, in large part because of spammers who use them to automatically redirect lens surfers to porn sites. It makes policing really hard (because the spammers don’t respect the G/R/X rating system, and because you get redirected before you can even report the lens), and unfortunately there’s no way for us to know (or control) what’s on those third party pages.
If we don’t put a stop to it now, we run the risk of tarnishing our reputation in the blog community, which is having a hard time coping with these iframe spammers who post bogus blog comments and trackbacks linking to their pseudo-lenses. We don’t want any part of it, and unfortunately there’s no other alternative. Starting July 12th (one week from today), all iframes will be prevented from appearing anywhere on Squidoo. To all you bloggers who suffered the fallout, we’re really really sorry.
Howie on July 18th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I had the chance to ask Seth this exact question – his reply was:
Seth Godin:
“Well, the first part is easy: we got rid of iframes because the bad guys made us. They abused our trust. We can’t find a way around that, so, unfortunately, they’re gone. ”
Full interview is here:
http://www.searchingdot.com/2007/07/17/interview-with-seth-godin-on-the-squidoo-slap/
Chris at Top Work From Home on December 2nd, 2007 at 1:16 pm
This is a prime example of the few ruining it for the rest of us good guys. I was using the i frame to have my lead capture forms on my lenses and was getting a lot of signups from it. Now I just have a link to my newsletter sign up page and don’t get nearly as many leads.
I hope they find a solution but I am sure the “bad guys” will find a way to ruin that too.