New Spam Tool: Email Domain & IP Banning at Sign-Up

[Eric Suesz]

We're no fan of spam at Ning. We know it can be an annoyance, especially for Ning Creators who choose not to moderate membership. While we can't solve for every type of spam attack, we have put in place a number of spam tools in the last two years that can make a difference. If you haven't turned all of those on yet, we encourage you to take a minute to make sure you're Preventing Spam in the best ways you can.

Today, we're releasing another spam tool that allows Ning Plus and Pro to perform both email domain and IP banning. 

IP banning is a request we've had over time from people here on Creators, so we are sure that a few folks who've wanted to see this will be happy that it's now available. The feature is fairly straightforward, and it's entirely optional. You'll see a new column in Member Management for IP addresses, and you'll see the option to block in the Sign-up/Sign-in area.

Block IP addresses at sign-up

You can prevent anyone coming from a specific IP address from signing up for your site. Just enter the IP address you want to block, and no one will be able to sign up from that IP address.

Block email domains at sign-up

Similarly, you can choose email domains that you want to block from signing up for your community. If you see spam coming from an email domain like [e-mail], you can block all sign-ups that come from the @sharklasers.com domain.

Of course, these are powerful tools, so we recommend using them carefully and thoughtfully. If you ban an IP that hundreds of thousands of people potentially use, you cut off access to thousands of potential members.

• These options are only available to the Network Creator; not admins.
• You can remove the bans you put in place at any time.
• If someone is unable to sign in because of these blocks, they will see a specific message. The specific message is located in the Language Editor and can be customized.
• If someone is unable to sign in, they can still contact you, provided you have not turned off that option. That option is located in your own personal Email Settings area (Feedback and problem reports).
• The reports you receive from members having trouble includes the email and IP address, as well as whether either is blocked.

One other thing to note about this feature is that you may see that an IP record is "unavailable" in your listings. In most cases, this will be because the member joined before we were able to capture their IP address (i.e., before this tool was turned on a few weeks ago).

Want to know where an IP is geographically located? Look it up on InfoSniper

You can read all about how to Block an Email Domain or IP Address from Signing Up in the Help Center.

[Janice D Carter]

This is fantastic!  Thank you and I appreciate the forward thinking to add the sorting by IP also.  It will be helpful.  Good work Ning, we appreciate it

[Eric Suesz]

I wish we could add IP sorting everywhere, but it will only be in the Spam Watchlist. 

[Eric Suesz]

I think it gets delivered to them but it's anonymized. I don't know for sure, but my guess here is that it may be similar to the way Facebook works. Here's what we say about the Facebook exception: 

When signing up for web sites using Facebook Login, members have the choice of providing their real email address or giving a proxy email address, which will be something similar to [e-mail]. Email to this address will be delivered, but you won’t know the member’s real email address.

[Apostle Solael]

our messages get sent to our email address that is registered with linkedin.

[Apostle Solael]

Truly finally! Thank you!!!

[Damien Hannah]

Thank you NING!!! A++

It's been a journey, full of spam, hopefully this is going to end the wave of bots we've had signing up. Hopefully this doesn't result in having to individuallly ban thousands of ip addresses. Guess we'll find out as IP lists start emerging. :)
A big thank you for the upgrade!

[Kat]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. My heart jumped for joy when I saw this change. Now I can catch cheaters in our contests more easily!

[ismail shah]

Please Its Request . Add Sorting or IP Search. It will help our network regarding Some fake profiles of same users..

IP Which is shown is of Signup? . Let suppose 2 year old user Sign in today IP system  IP will be updated in list or Not ? Currently it showing UNAVAILABLE.

thx

[Debbie]

My present Ning network doesn't accept membership sign-up, since we are a Ning theme designing network only.  As a creator of a membership Ning network in the past, here is a heads up to everyone concerning the ban on IP Addresses.  As we all know, 'Proxy Servers' are used by many spammers so blocking IP addresses might be a little challenging.

[Elson Tan]

Great news. :)

[Ratheesh]

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000Like

im some times aasked this fecility before three years,now we got....thanks thanks thanks

[Date360]

u did not put how we can go about it on our ning network, how to activate it,