I was not very surprised to read the wired.com article on decoy election websites. Companies have been using decoy websites to direct traffic to their own website. They own numerous domain names in addition to their main website. These websites then turn up in the majority of online searches for that particular product and the consumer is eventually directed back to the main website.
This also reminds me of a parallel story in user reviews. I have come across and also read about phony reviews being posted on sites like amazon.com and apartmentratings.com among many others sites I am sure. The users are quick enough to point out phony reviews (it’s entertaining to read apartment reviews, where 9 out of 10 people complain about the management and other aspects of a housing complex and give ratings of 1 and 2 on 5 and suddenly you have these posts giving ratings of 5/5 and talking about how great the place and management are, etc.) However, this is definitely making consumers distrustful of such forums.
Questions are also being raised about the hidden nature of editing at websites like wikipedia.com and if there might be some hidden political agendas behind some of the editing at Wikipedia. One such story from the NYDaily News website:
Darshana (still 2/11/08:)
The increased candidate Internet traffic by email and Youtube emphasizes how unique this election is. These new cyber opportunities to interact with candidates and their campaigns makes me wonder about parallels to contact possible when this country was younger and less populous. Is this public proliferation of candiate communication and published public opinion a window in to another by-gone American age? This seems seductively intimate and one way to engage the disenfranchised. It would be interesting to do a comparison of voter turnout percentages, investigate the role of the Internet and see if there are any relevant parallels in the public's engagement with the election to an earlier period in our history.
--Michelle 2/11/08
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