Author Topic: Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article  (Read 7449 times)

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Offline wdtony

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Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article
« on: August 27, 2009, 12:40:32 AM »
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi ... 87320.html

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Some pointers on how to defuse the Google bomb


By KATHLEEN PARKER Washington Post
Aug. 25, 2009, 8:36PM


When Oscar Wilde observed that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, he could not have imagined the Internet.

The wild frontier we now know and (mostly) love called the Blogosphere is a not-always-OK corral where Free Speech is armed and often dangerous.

The latest showdown is between two women — a Vogue model and an anonymous blogger — at odds over what is permissible in the name of free expression. After the blogger called Liskula Cohen a “skank,” among other things, the model demanded her identity from the blog host, Google.

Outraged, the blogger, revealed as Rosemary Port, is launching a $15 million lawsuit against Google for disclosing her identity. Google's Andrew Pederson said that while his company sympathizes with victims of cyber-bullying, “We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order.”

Voila.

This all may seem like an inside-the-runway spat between two women who don't like each other. As pioneering blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds noted on Instapundit, “I never would have heard the words ‘Liskula Cohen' and ‘skank' together if it hadn't been for her blogger-outing litigation efforts.”

The model case isn't insignificant, however, and raises questions about privacy, anonymity and the future of e-free speech.

The problem of online defamation is hardly new, but several recent lawsuits have begun challenging the anything-goes modus operandi of the Internet. One of the most famous dates to 2006, when Sue Scheff won a staggering $11.3 million verdict against a woman who had posted hundreds of defamatory comments about Scheff and her company, which counsels the parents of troubled teens.

After years of torment that included stalkers and death wishes, Scheff was able to prove that her reputation and business suffered as a result of the defendant's comments. In her new book Google Bomb, Scheff offers advice to others similarly defamed online.

“Google bomb” is Internet slang for attempting to raise the ranking of a given page during a Google search. The popularity of a page may not reflect the page's relationship to truth, but may be popular for other reasons. Let's just say, nasty sells.

Defusing Google bombs isn't much fun, unless you're a computer geek. To keep your online profile positive and prominent, you have to blog, tweet and maintain Web sites — or hire someone to do it for you. Scheff says she resents this, but, “if you don't own your own name, someone else will.”

Scheff considers herself lucky because she was able to hire an attorney as well as an Internet monitoring company, ReputationDefender, that manages her online persona. Others, hundreds of whom write her each week, aren't so fortunate. In just one example, a wedding photographer lost his business when a single unhappy bride went 'zilla and trashed him online.

“No one is immune,” says Scheff. And, just because you're not personally active on the Internet doesn't mean that your persona isn't online — not necessarily in a good way. The Internet has unleashed that part of ourselves that we used to keep under wraps. Dark thoughts, like the trolls of Mordor, can now surface and thrive by the light of day.

The freedom granted by anonymity and a virtual audience may have been a boon to democracy, affording everyone a voice, but it has been a plague on decency. Inhibition, we lament, is an undervalued virtue.

Scheff's case and the Cohen incident suggest that a new level of accountability, largely missing from personal blogs, may be in the offing. “What you type today can haunt you tomorrow,” says Scheff. “People need to know that if you use your mouse and keypad to harm others, there is a price tag.”

Harm is the operative word. Although Scheff was able to prove material losses, Cohen likely gained from her brief tenure as a victim. In fact, she has dropped her lawsuit and forgiven the blogger.

No one likes being bashed online or elsewhere — and public people are familiar with the experience. But even Scheff thinks that in the absence of quantifiable defamation, anonymity deserves protection. As Google and the courts slug it out, Cohen did manage to BOLD-italicize an oft-ignored lesson: Think before you type.

Or else someone may want more than a penny for your thoughts.

Parker's e-mail address is [email protected].
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline psy

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Re: Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2009, 07:58:43 AM »
*braces for incoming traffic at sueschefftruth.com*
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline TheWho

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Re: Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2009, 08:47:30 AM »
Eventually the courts will become overwhelmed with subpoenas and court orders to help businesses and people who were hurt financially by people attacking them from the shadows to identify their attackers that tracking an ip will become routine.  It will go the way of other forms of communication before this.  People use to be able to make crank phone calls without the caller knowing who it was and AT&T fought to keep control of the numbers under the guise of public safety and privacy laws.  But it got to the point where wackos were calling presidents of businesses and disrupting neighbors lives that it just made sense to make the numbers public instead of overwhelming the courts and local operators.  Now the callers number comes up on your phone and you have a choice to answer or not.  If someone rents a billboard to harm or harass another person this information is made public also.  So the internet, I believe, will follow the same path when enough people with power get hurt and or the court system becomes overwhelmed.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline psy

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Re: Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2009, 09:38:57 AM »
Quote from: "Guest22"
Eventually the courts will become overwhelmed with subpoenas and court orders to help businesses and people who were hurt financially by people attacking them from the shadows to identify their attackers that tracking an ip will become routine.  It will go the way of other forms of communication before this.  People use to be able to make crank phone calls without the caller knowing who it was and AT&T fought to keep control of the numbers under the guise of public safety and privacy laws.  But it got to the point where wackos were calling presidents of businesses and disrupting neighbors lives that it just made sense to make the numbers public instead of overwhelming the courts and local operators.  Now the callers number comes up on your phone and you have a choice to answer or not.  If someone rents a billboard to harm or harass another person this information is made public also.  So the internet, I believe, will follow the same path when enough people with power get hurt and or the court system becomes overwhelmed.
But Sue Scheff wasn't hurt. She might have been offended but that's very difficult than harm.  If she was harmed by anything financially it was by people telling the truth about her escapades of selling kids off to the highest bidder, with the quality of program be damned. People have a right to do that anonymously, especially considering how litigious she is.  For chrissakes.  She sued Carey Bock for calling her a crook, con, and a liar; all opinion in that context.  Similar to this Cohen cunt suing some lady over calling her a "skank", and dropping it once she had her identity.  Whatever you might think the harm of unrestricted speech is, it pales in comparison to the chilling effects of what you're proposing.

Quote
"Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views ... Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation ... at the hand of an intolerant society."

 -- 1995 Supreme Court ruling McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission


Read what the EFF has to say on the matter:
http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline try another castle

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Re: Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2009, 09:39:49 PM »
so..  how is it that reputationdefender isn't considered the worst google bomber of all? because someone pays for it?


oh wait, no, their job is to erase history..
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Antigen

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Re: Sue Scheff "Google Bomb" mentioned in article
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2009, 01:28:54 AM »
Just remember, Gig
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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