Entries from June 2008 ↓

ReputationDefender recently found this interesting video of Myspace users on YouTube.

Given the fluid nature of identity on the internet, social networking sites are full of false profiles and stolen identities. This can lead to Internet Defamation of Character and Internet Harassment.

In response to the rash of false identities on MySpace, the company has requested users to send a video to admins of the real users saying their MySpace ID tag.

An ingenious YouTube user has taken this as an opportunity to compile the many faces of MySpace (which are predominantly young girls with bangs and lots of eye shadow). Enjoy!

* A political blogger has announced that he is attempting to “Googlebomb” John McCain in an attempt to influence the 2008 presidential election. By “Googlebombing,” he’s attempting to manipulate the Google search engine so that certain negative links about John McCain appear higher up in a search for “John McCain” and similar searches. He’s doing this by placing links around the Internet in an attempt to make the negative articles appear more popular than they actually are, in the hope of getting Google’s search algorithm to rank them higher than positive articles about John McCain. He hopes to change the results enough that the first page of Google will be filled with negative links about John McCain, instead of the mixed positive and negative links that appear there now.

[Editor's note: Since we don't want to impact his campaign one way or the other, we're applying the "nofollow" attribute to any link related to his Googlebomb. The "nofollow" tells Google to ignore the links and not consider them in its rankings.]

This is a pretty big development. It’s not the first time that Google has been an important part of a presidential campaign. For example, Ron Paul’s supporters tried very hard to keep positive information about their candidate at the top of a Google search for “Ron Paul.” They were so confident that they would be able to keep positive information about their candidate at the top of a Google search that they rented a blimp that instructed viewers to “Google Ron Paul.” And it’s not the first time that the White House has been the subject of a Google bomb; there was once a rather famous googlebomb that tried to make George W. Bush appear at the top of a search for “miserable failure.”

But, this is the first time that there has been a public attempt to influence a presidential election by artificially inflating the negative publicity surrounding a candidate through a Googlebomb. Some people think it’s a dirty trick. Other people think it’s a natural part of a modern political campaign. Either way, it’s a trend we haven’t seen the end of.

The idea of a Googlebomb is especially powerful given how important the first page of Google results are. Google has around an 80% market share for search. In other words, 80% of people get their search information from Google. And we’ve talked about how most users only read the first page of Google search results, and then focus most of their attention on the first three results (“power hits”). This kind of technique allows politicians and their supporters to control the first page of Google, and thus control what information the world discovers about a candidate.

It’s also especially powerful because it allows candidates to campaign negatively without looking like they are running a negative campaign. It’s possible to launch a completely anonymous Googlebomb, unlike most other forms of negative campaigning. Candidates can get all the benefits of a negative campaign without having to face the backlash that usually follows attack ads.

It’s also possible that this will lead to an arms race on the Internet between campaigns. Right now, opponents of John McCain are dropping a negative Googlebomb against him. It’s possible that his supporters will respond by trying to bomb positive results back to the top of Google and by attacking Barrack Obama through a negative googlebomb of their own.

Is a campaign tactic that will become commonplace in the future, a dirty political trick, or both?

If you’ve been a target of a Googlebomb, it’s not too late to restore your online image. Services like MyEdge can be a first step toward getting your good name back.

* As always, I’m proud to be guest-blogging and my views don’t necessarily represent those of ReputationDefender or its employees.

Recently, ReputationDefender heard about a new social network on the internets. Coming out of Australia, this particular network isn’t a carbon copy of MySpace and Facebook. The name of this new network is Xt3.com, and of course, like all social network sites, it is looking for new members. But this particular site is looking to get you for more than a login ID; they want your soul.

As the Sydney Morning Herald explains:

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL prefers the pen to the computer; it was not that long ago that he was resisting the mobile phone and email.

But the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, who turned 67 this month, has become a convert to the potential of the virtual world for evangelizing.

Xt3, which stands for Christ in the third millennium, is like Facebook. Where it differs from Facebook is the content: users can join groups, post events, volunteer for charities, chat to a priest, post prayer intentions and join online debates within the church about social justice, ethical teachings and theology.

It is interesting to see the concept of social networks being applied to something very social like religion. The internet already has religion-specific dating sites like jdate.com but this is the first that we’ve ever seen of a faith-based social network. Of course, the real question is whether or not the content will be reviewed and indexed by the big G itself: Google.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently profiled Barack Obama’s efforts to combat negative rumors online. It was the top story in their newscast and makes some interesting points about politics, the media and internet defamation. Jon Stewart correctly points out that the internet is not the only place where innuendo and slander can be generated, and takes the main stream media to task for their inability to separate hype from fact.

ReputationDefender Blog has covered the Obama story before and the main stream media has picked up the meme of political races moving into cyberspace for online reputation management. Whether you are Presidential Candidate or part of the electorate, it is important to be proactive when fighting Internet Defamation. ReputationDefender is committed to helping you defend your online reputation.

ReputationDefender came across a great article in the New York Times today entitled “When Googling a Person (or Yourself) Isn’t Enough” that profiles the “Deep Web.” The Deep Internet, or DarkNet, consists of personal information that exists online that does not appear on a standard Google search.

The article covers a new site, Pipl.com, that delves into the deep internet to return a more complete picture of your digital footprint. Pipl scours white papers, government records and social networking sites of the deep internet in order to give people an accurate account of their online reputation.

ReputationDefender consistently searches beyond Google and queries the Deep Web for our customers in order to accurately portray their online reputation. As we move into the digital age, managing your online data, even data in the “deep internet,” will be a concern for responsible netizens the world over. ReputationDefender is committed to Internet Privacy, Identity Management and helping people become anonymous online.