Well-mannered spam

A few days ago I noticed a brief comment to one of my posts. It was from someone named Lily and all it said was "Thanks." I spent a minute wondering if the comment was meant to be sincere or sarcastic but, other than that, I didn't give it much thought.

Then yesterday Lily was back with another comment, or, more accurately, the same comment, this time on another post. There was no obvious common thread to the two posts, no apparent reason that anyone would single them out. All of this made me, in equal parts, suspicious and curious, so I clicked on the profile where I found a picture of a very attractive young Asian woman and a long list of blogs that, according to Google translate, offer a wide range of questionable services.

Profile-based spam is a new one on me and I wonder how the filters are going to handle it. On the bright side, though, at least it's polite.

What's French for spam?

A few days ago, Seyward Darby posted a good piece of analysis on publishing teacher scores. Having been critical of Darby's previous writing on the subject, I entitled my response "Credit where credit is due." This morning I found the following comment complete with hyperlink:

Creadit - Vous cherchez crédit, credit d'impot, banque et bancaire [redacted] est une entreprise de courtage offrant les meilleures solutions pour pret relais et Credit en ligne au meilleur prix.

Or (according to Google Translate):

Cread - Looking for credit, tax credit, bank and banking [redacted] is a brokerage firm offering the best solutions for bridging loan and Credit online at the best price.

This should have been an easy catch for the spam filter. Was this just a random slip-up or does language make a difference?