Color me naive, but why is this a bad thing?
If your listing reaches more people, it's ultimately better for you.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
There's also the downside that some scummy person is representing themselves as being affiliated with you, when they're not. So if they do scummy things to the candidate (which they likely would, given what they're doing to you), then you are painted in a bad light. Think of situations that HNers complain about here, and then imagine that it's your company being (wrongfully) dragged for having lousy interviewing practices.
I generally respond (as a candidate) to get a sense of the problem. I can assure you that bad representation is the biggest problem. It’s not uncommon for recruiters to say something really problematic (bluntly racist or sexist) or impose excessive interview steps to filter candidates, without knowledge of the industry. I often know the hiring manager well enough to give feedback and they are generally horrified.
I'm actively interviewing for new positions, and the amount of stuff that startups (most out of Silicon Valley) are doing is absolute batshit. From 2-hour tech screens to 19-hour unpaid interviews WORKING ON THEIR OWN CODE BASE, I will not be surprised when the DoL does a crackdown on the interview process. I have been in the software development industry for decades. If you can't tell if a candidate qualifies after 45-90 (tops!) minutes of interviews, you may want to look internally for problems. All they are really doing is rejecting a ton of super smart developers, many who may have disabilities.
Oh, and then there was that one company who told me I had no knowledge of a language and framework I am actively contributing to, and have built robust, scalable enterprise apps out of. "We are looking for experts of <language x> and also <framework y> and <framework z>." That was literally the message they sent me. They did NOT know about my contributions because my dumb ass tries not to show off stuff like that when looking for employment as I want to be weighed on my ability to write awesome code and not weighed on a popularity contest.
I know you likely learned from this, but it's worth repeating especially for people who don't often go looking for jobs.
Getting hired is a sales process. You are the product. It doesn't really matter what you can do - that's probably not what you are selling to the interviewer.
What you are selling is the fact that _you_ (and you alone) are the best choice for the position. That means a combination of skill set and personality.
So specifically, being "popular", or "known", or "admired" in the tech community is a feature, one which is very valuable to potential employers. Being popular means you're (probably) not a dick, and that's worth knowing.
I say this with respect, but there were likely a bunch of folk they interviewed who can write code just as awesome as yours (at least in their eyes). I don't mean that to demean you, but clearly a) it's impossible to determine code awesomeness in an interview - it takes months for awesome code to even surface - and b) there are a _lot_ of people out there writing awesome code.
In Western culture it is considered polite to be modest, but being modest in an interview, or on a CV is a bug, not a feature. You need to sell, and sell hard, every possible accomplishment - without being a dick.
Writing awesome code is not enough. Fitting in with the team (ie demonstrating social skills), having deep knowledge of some framework (enough to contribute, and have those contributions accepted), publishing or presenting at conferences (ability to communicate and articulate), are all huge box ticks in the recruiting process.
Don't. Be. Shy.
It wasn't until the recruiter tell me to proceed with the on-site interview would I learned that in fact, the company the recruiter is seeking candidates for is the same company I applied and failed earlier. This leaves me scratch my head why the company didn't respond to job posting I applied directly, but decided to pick me up when I was referred to by recruiter. They could have turned down recruiter's referral about me and I won't be surprised one bit.
See:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/202...
Incidentally, the search for "recruiter (fraud|scam)" turns up a distressingly high number of hits, many from companies targeted:
How many good candidates were scared away by the sketchy recruiter? There's no way to know.
Of course, with that said, there was some service a few years ago (maybe it's Doordash?) that was generating landing pages and buying domains pretending they were the restaurant. But that's also very shady.
From what I head, the various delivery services have been setting up websites that pretend to be the actual restaurant's site, but list their own phone number. So they're committing fraud, too.