good: information is found, packaged, and presented to users. But,
the system can also spin out of control when users feed it false in-
formation. With one bad input, the connections between the sites
can cause the entire system to amplify and echo false information.
The amplification starts when one user copies bad information to a
“Web 2.0” site, that website automatically spreads it to others, and
then another user repeats the process—the cycle repeats uncontrol-
lably until the false information has been distributed far beyond
where it should be. For example, a false story posted on the social
news site Digg might be shared by users of the social networking site
Facebook, which might be “tweeted” by users of the short-form mes-
saging site Twitter.com, where other users will post it to the news site
Reddit, where an automated software “robot” will display it on other
popular websites without any human intervention, and so on. The
sites start to resemble a game of “telephone”—one person posts a
story, which gets transformed a little bit as it is relayed to another
site, then a little more, then a little more, until complete fiction has
been accepted as reality. Often, the story moves so far away from its
original source that readers have no way to find out if it is false or in-
complete.
The out-of-control Internet “machine” has caused millions of
dollars in real-world losses. One day, a “citizen journalist” participat-
ing in CNN’s “iReport” experiment posted a prank article claiming
that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after
suffering a heart attack. The news automatically spread from CNN’s
site to others and was quickly visible on hundreds of websites that
provide stock news and trading information. Apple stock dropped
$10 (nearly 10 percent) on the news, and millions of dollars of value
was destroyed. Apple was later able to correct the rumors, but the
stock still ended the day lower.
2
Or take the example of the website Spock.com, which was pur-
chased in 2009 by the public records and background-check com-
pany Intelius. Spock.com attempts to aggregate information about
everyday people. If you were to search Spock.com for the authors of
Welcome to the New Digital Frontier 11
this book, you would likely find a little profile about each of us.
Much of the content on Spock.com is based on a robot’s automated
exploration of a variety of directories. The site then uses other soft-
ware to cross-reference the results that the robot finds in order to
compile an automated dossier on as many people as it can identify.
There is generally no human intervention and no way for the robot
to verify whether any content it finds is true. In one infamous inci-
dent, the robot mistook John Aravosis (a prominent blogger) for a
pedophile, because of the robot’s inability to tell whether Aravosis
was writing about a pedophile or whether he was one himself. (For
the record, John Aravosis is not a pedophile.) Nonetheless, the site
tagged his profile as “pedophile,” and his name appeared whenever
somebody searched for “pedophile” on the site. The problem was in-
stantly compounded when news reporters mentioned the robot’s er-
ror. The robot, lacking any irony detector whatsoever, interpreted
news stories about the error—many of which contained the words
“John Aravosis” and “pedophile”—as confirmation that it got it right
the first time around. The link was reinforced, and Aravosis was re-
duced to pleading with Spock.com’s customer service team to get his
name cleared. In that case, Spock.com was willing to override the ro-
bot’s actions, probably because Aravosis is a powerful blogger and
could create massive bad publicity for the company. Future victims
might not be as lucky.
Another example of false amplification occurred when Google
News—an automatic newsbot that searches the Internet to find the
important news of the day without any human intervention—got
out of control. The results that the newsbot calculates to be the most
important (usually the most popular stories that appear in the most
news sources) are displayed on the Google News homepage. One
morning in late 2008, a software glitch occurred, and an outdated ar-
ticle about United Airlines’ 2002 bankruptcy filing suddenly ap-
peared in the Google News system as if it were new. The sudden
appearance of a new-seeming article led a writer at the “Income Se-
curities Advisor” newsletter to mention the possibility of a bank-
Wild West 2.012
ruptcy in his own article. That article was then automatically dis-
tributed by the Bloomberg wire to hundreds of websites. Once a
(false) story about the new United bankruptcy rumor appeared on
hundreds of sites, the Google newsbot mistook the story’s popular-
ity as confirmation of its importance and made the story even more
prominent on the Google News site. The cycle continued. Stock
traders immediately reacted, sending UAL stock into a tailspin that
ended with a 76 percent drop in the company’s value before trading
was automatically halted. By afternoon, United was able to deny the
rumor, but UAL stock still closed down 10 percent on the day. Of
course, all parties involved claim that somebody else was responsible
for the error.
3
These stories are vivid, but they are neither unique nor rare.
Similar events happen all the time to everyday people who have
done nothing wrong and done nothing to attract attention to
themselves. Sometimes these events go without publicity because
they are less egregious, but just as often extreme errors go unno-
ticed by the media because they happen to everyday people and
small businesses, rather than to big companies or powerful blog-
gers. Unfortunately, the effect of one of these incidents on a private
individual or small business can be even larger than on a big com-
pany or famous person: most everyday people don’t have millions
of dollars to spend on PR or their own blog through which to cor-
rect the record.
The machine can cause great harm even when it is working as
designed. A number of well-known companies are in the business of
aggregating and selling enormous amounts of personal information:
social security numbers, phone numbers, current and old addresses,
spousal information, information about children, medical histories
and insurance claims, income data, and other revealing details. They
often gather this information from widely dispersed sources, ranging
from phonebooks to innocent-seeming consumer surveys to state
governments. This information is often used for good purposes, such
as rooting out credit card fraud and providing background checks for
Welcome to the New Digital Frontier 13
teachers and medical professionals. But some data brokers also sell
their lists to less scrupulous companies, like telemarketers and
small-time scammers. Their data has been used by identity thieves
and stalkers to help find details about victims. And, because these
database companies possess such rich stores of data, they become
targets of opportunity for fraudsters and computer hackers.
There Is Hope
Thank goodness, there is hope for the average Internet user. Despite
all the threats and changes, millions of people have positive online
images and live in peace with their Internet neighbors. Through a
few simple steps, everyday people like you can still guard your rep-
utation on the digital frontier and even improve your online image
in order to increase your success in dating, socializing, getting a job,
or getting more clients. By understanding how the Internet is dif-
ferent from other communications media, you will begin to under-
stand the rules of reputation online and the online reputation
dangers faced by individuals and small businesses. Then, by learning
specific tactics to measure and analyze your own online reputation,
you will be able to assess your online reputation priorities—and the
gaps that need to be filled to meet those priorities. Next, by learn-
ing the techniques used by professionals to repair and improve on-
line reputations, you will learn the active steps you can take to
improve your reputation today—and why you should act before you
have suffered a reputation attack at all (especially if you hope to get
more customers, meet new people, or just generally present a posi-
tive appearance to the world). Finally, by discovering steps to take in
case of an online reputation attack, you will learn how to protect
yourself in a worst-case attack and how to start down the road to
reputation recovery.
Hold tight; traversing the new digital frontier can still be a rough
ride, but the rewards are powerful.
Wild West 2.014
A Note About Notes
For your convenience, the authors have provided many links to ad-
ditional information or to the full text of sources. In order to save
space and avoid the need for you to retype some dreadfully long
URLs, all links to additional information are provided through the
official website of the book: WildWest2.com. Links of this kind ap-
pear in the format “Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/101.” When you
come across one of these links, it is a signal that there is more infor-
mation available online. Simply type the URL in your web browser
and you will be automatically forwarded to the original source of ad-
ditional information. The authors might not agree with anything (or
everything) that a source says, but the links are provided so that you
can gather information for yourself. Of course, the authors do not
control any linked websites, which may have different privacy poli-
cies—please browse cautiously.
Notes
1. Google, Inc., “An Explanation of Our Search Results.” Go: http://wildwest2
.com/go/101.
2. Eric Schonfeld, “Citizen ‘Journalist’ Hits Apple Stock with False (Steve Jobs)
Heart Attack Rumor,” Te c h C r u c h , October 3, 2008. Go: http://wildwest2
.com/go/102.
3. Jackson West, “Google News Glitch Helps Cause United Stock Selloff,”
Valley Wa g, September 8, 2008. Go: http://wildwest2.com/go/103.
Welcome to the New Digital Frontier 15
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