Plagiarism Today has an excellent article about spamblogs, the problems faced by Google/Blogspot, its spread to MSN Spaces, and why this is likely to be a trend:
"The bitter truth is that the Web is more vulnerable than ever to splogging, not because of clever spammers but because of ill-prepared hosts. While Google responded to pressure from the blogging world to do a better job policing its service (though the effectiveness of its response is up for debate), other hosts have not taken any clear steps and many are completely unable to handle the problems that they face now."
Yes. This has been a discussion topic on Winds following our (continuing) ban on blogspot.com in comments or trackbacks. Personally, I believe we're headed for a blog future in which owning your own domain will be the only viable option to avoid fairly widespread blacklisting. As the PT article notes:
"Being a successful Web host is no longer just about having the best features or good servers and easy to use tools. It's also about having an effective abuse policy that not only frees up precious resources for legitimate users, but makes you a good neighbor on the Web.
Simply put, no one wants to use a service that has a bad reputation or has even been blacklisted for generating too much junk and, in a Web where sharing information and ideas is critical to survival, being blacklisted, can be a death kneel to an otherwise sound service.... We just want to run our sites, search our data and read our favorite pages in peace.
However, it's up to the hosts to create that and, frankly, I don't think most are up for the challenge."
I tend to agree; here's the whole piece if you want to read it.
I see a future in which the free sites are training/experimental grounds, and the more all-inclusive ones like Blogspot or MSN Spaces are their own little gated communities, accepting each other's links but not accepted or accepting very much beyond that radius.
That's sad, but the absence of meaningful penalties or enforcement against spammers makes it more or less inevitable.