Harms to Quiet Enjoyment
Some false or malicious Internet content prevents you from quietly
living your own life without interference from others. An innocent-
looking blog that lists your e-mail address might not embarrass
you—it is just an e-mail address—but it might make you vulnerable
to spam. Similarly, a site that lists your political contributions might
not be news to anybody who knows you, but if it lists your full name
and address (as many political contribution sites do), it creates a risk
of harassment and unwanted efforts by scam artists to separate you
from your money. After all, if you were willing to give $500 (or even
$2,000) to a political candidate, a scam artist might think that you
have enough money to be worth targeting with an in-person visit.
Or, a display of your photograph on a site describing members of a
controversial political or social group might open you (and your fam-
ily) up to in-person harassment.
Other threats to your peaceful enjoyment of life are more
uniquely digital. If somebody registers your name as a username on
many sites, just to stop you from using them, this makes it more dif-
ficult to enjoy your online experience. If somebody places a false
fraud alert on your credit file, this makes it more difficult to obtain
credit. As long as the Internet remains a popular social medium, at-
tackers will create new ways to harass and intimidate in this way.
Harms to Online Exploration
There are even online harms that are unique to the Internet. The In-
ternet has been a boon for social exploration by giving users the
chance to try new personalities and interests online, often under the
protective cover of a pseudonym. Users get to try new political and
social positions or just play devil’s advocate without fear of personal
repercussions. For example, someone who lives in a very conservative
area may want to learn more about alternative sexual orientations
and to discuss his personal situation with others. Thanks to the
anonymity of the Internet, many users are able to look beyond the
parochial confines of their small town and discover information
How to Measure Damage to Your Internet Reputation 15 5
about life in the big city. But, if a malicious user threatens to expose
the “real-world” identities of users who are trying to learn more about
themselves and their identity, users will be far less likely to explore.
Audience Reached
After considering the types of harm that a piece of content can cause,
the next most important thing to a victim of online reputation dam-
age is measuring the audience reached. After all, a piece of potentially
harmful content that nobody views is relatively harmless in effect: It
does not matter to your reputation that a computer somewhere is
storing a digital representation of some harmful information, because
the information affects your reputation only when a human views it.
On the other hand, a smear or attack that reaches thousands (or even
hundreds of thousands) of people can be devastating to your repu-
tation and leave you working to rebuild your good name from the
ground up.
At the same time, the composition of the audience matters. If an
online smear is seen mostly by people who (for example) live in a dif-
ferent country from the victim, the victim will not suffer as much di-
rect harm: It is unlikely that the victim was going to interact with
anyone in that audience, anyway, so there is little direct social or pro-
fessional harm. The victim still might be embarrassed, but he is un-
likely to lose social status or a job opportunity. On the other hand, if
the false negative content is seen by people very close to the victim—
her friends, family, and co-workers, for example—it can be profoundly
damaging even if it is seen only by a handful of people. Because the
people who see the negative information are the people who interact
with the victim every day, false material that reaches a targeted audi-
ence can be very damaging.
Mathematically, what we call the Libel Index captures the rela-
tionship between harm and audience:
Potential harm = Audience size ⫻ closeness of audience
Wild West 2.0156
In other words, the potential harm that a piece of negative In-
ternet content can cause is roughly equal to the size of the audience
multiplied by the closeness of the audience to the victim. An ex-
tremely large audience can be damaging if it shares some relationship
with the victim, but a large audience made up entirely of complete
strangers is not necessarily acutely damaging. On the other hand,
false negative content that reaches a targeted audience can be very
damaging, even if the audience is not very large.
Measuring the Audience: Search Engines
To understand the audience, think about who might find a piece of
negative content and how. Is the information easily found in a
Google search for the victim’s name or business? Is it being spread to
discussion sites or chat forums? Is it being e-mailed or otherwise
proactively pushed? Is it spreading virally?
Search engines are one of the most powerful ways that false or
misleading information is spread. Negative information that shows
up near the top of a Google search for the victim’s name can be par-
ticularly damaging because it will be seen by people who are looking
for information about the victim. On the other hand, negative infor-
mation that shows up near the top of a Google search for keywords
that appear completely unrelated to the victim might reach a large
audience, but the audience is unlikely to be targeted: a lot of people
who don’t know the victim might see it, but most of the people who
do know the victim won’t happen to search for those magic key-
words. Search terms that are somewhere in the middle—related to
the victim, but only loosely—will have an intermediate impact; some
people who know the victim are likely to see the content, and so are
some people who don’t (see Figure 9-1).
For content that appears in a search engine search, take note of
where the content appears in the search results. The vast majority of
users only look at the first three search results in an average web
query.
3
If a negative result appears in the first three results, it will be
vastly more powerful than if it appears near the bottom of the first
How to Measure Damage to Your Internet Reputation 15 7
Figure 9-1. How Much Do Search Terms Matter? People use a variety of
search terms to find information. Some people are looking for information
specifically about you, and others happen to stumble upon you. This chart
demonstrates the importance of various search terms.
Search Term Audience Size Audience Relevance Libel Index
Joe Smith Small
There are unlikely to
be very many people
searching for your
name unless you share
a name with somebody
else.
Very High
People who are searching
for your name in a search
engine are likely to be
searching for you, but they
might also be searching for
somebody with a similar
name.
High
If negative content
appears for a search for
your name, then it will
probably reach a
targeted audience that
could be very dangerous.
Joe Smith Springfield Very Small
Very few people will
be searching for you
with such specificity.
Extremely High
It is almost certain that
somebody searching for
your name and an
identifying characteristic
(such as your town) is
trying to find information
about you.
Very High
If a search for your
name plus some
identifying information
dredges up negative
information, it is almost
certain that somebody
close to you will see it.
flowers Extremely Large
Tens of thousands of
people all around the
world use search
engines to search for
“flowers” every day.
Low
The vast majority of people
who search for “flowers”
online are probably in
different states and have
never heard of you.
Medium
If negative information
about you appears in
such a generic search
term, it will be seen by a
very large audience.
Most of the audience
will never meet you and
never interact with you.
But, some people in
your community still
might see it.
flowers in Springfield Somewhat Small
Fewer people search
for flowers in your
community.
High
People searching for
flowers in your community
are probably people who
you will interact with.
Medium-High
Many of your friends
and social colleagues
will never search this
way, but many of your
potential customers will.
“the meanest person
on earth”
Medium
This is the type of
search that could
spread as a joke
worldwide but that
will generally spread
only within those
communities of people
who are “in” on
Internet jokes; most
everyday users will
never think to try it.
Very Low
The search term appears to
have nothing to do with
you, so it is very unlikely
that your friends, family,
customers, or co-workers
will happen to type this
search into a search engine.
Medium
This is an example of a
Googlebomb: it is a
search term that appears
unrelated to you but one
that would harm your
reputation if any
information about you
were to appear in the
results. This type of
search can spread as a
joke to thousands of
people, but you will
never interact with most
of them.
Wild West 2.0158
page or even on a subsequent page. If there is positive or neutral con-
tent about you in the first three links, any negative content further
down the page will have a significantly smaller impact (see Figure 9-2).
Figure 9-2. Search Positions. Many search engines display 10 results on the
first page. But most users have screens that are smaller than a full page of
search results. Accordingly results after the sixth or seventh result are hidden
below the bottom of the page and are not visible without scrolling. These re-
sults are called “below the fold” (in reference to the fold on a newspaper) and
are not seen by many searchers. Information here (positive or negative) will
make less of an impact than information in the first few results. Only about
7.5% of users click on any of the results after the sixth result.
Illustration: David Thompson.
Icons: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
How to Measure Damage to Your Internet Reputation 15 9
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