Copyright © 2010 I-COM International 2010-07-30T07:29:21+0100 2010-07-30T07:29:21+0100 http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. http://www.i-com.net/blog/ http://i-com.net/images/icom-net.gif http://www.i-com.net/blog/ Leading Manchester SEO, SEM and web design agency blog. I-COM International blogmaster at i-com dot net I-COM International I-COM International en SEO, SEM, Web Design, Web Development 1440 http://www.i-com.net/blog/criminalising-fake-avatars-means-everybody-loses-127/ According to an article in Marketing Vox, a judge has ruled that having a "fake avatar" or online alter ego, sock puppet, fake social media profile, etc., is now a criminal offense, thanks to the case of Lori Drew, who was convicted of computer fraud after creating a fake MySpace persona to torment an acquaintance of her daughter - an activity which supposedly contributed to the girl's suicide. As Lisa Barone of WeBuildPages points out, should it really be illegal to hide behind an online persona just because some people are bullies? Yes, fake avatars are often used for online bullying, but  having a fake avatar does not automatically make one a bully. One of the great things about the internet is the ability to engage in conversations with a wide range of people while still remaining anonymous (and, theoretically, safe) should you want to do so. Reasons for creating "fake avatars" Internet marketers often use dummy social media accounts to promote their products and websites. This can be annoying when you don't want to be sold to, but it is hardly a malicious practice. These accounts may be used by multiple people to provide updates or interact with customers or blog readers. For example, my co-conspirator and I have both Twitter and MySpace accounts in  the name of our personal blog and these are separate from our personal accounts. We use these accounts when posting about things specifically relating to our blog or when responding to things people have said about the blog. People may need more than one account because they need to separate out personal interactions from work-based or more public ones. For example, the tone I take when writing on Searched Designed Developed is radically different from the one I use when writing in my personal blog. The intended audiences are vastly different and so is the subject matter. If I wrote on there like I write on here people would lose interest and go away. If I wrote on here like I write on there people would think that we aren't very professional. To me, as a copywriter, this makes perfect sense - you target your content to your audience. But, because of the two sets of online contacts and the reasons for them, I do, for the most part, have tried to maintain two separate sets of social media profiles - with diminishing amounts of success. Would one of these be construed as fake as neither contain many personal details other than my gender and age? What about those people who enjoy using the internet because it affords them anonymity and community at the same time or who feel comfortable forums and discussions of a personal or sensitive nature to get help or advice because of the anonymity the internet affords them? Does not giving away personal details mean that you are lying to people online? What about the people who like to engage with others online but who do not want people to see their picture, know where they live, how old they are or, well, anything else because, like the New York Times points out, people establish semi-fake online personas to avoid identity theft and protect themselves from predators? How can the state tell people they have to reveal personal details when they cannot prevent phishing and cybercrime? What about the many other bizarre quirks on the internet that we would lose if people were forced to have one profile which they use everywhere? Years ago, I used to moderate a forum where the Admin and a friend had about 10 different personas which were used to great comedy value in the daily interchanges on the site. These were not established with malicious intent and were part of the unusual community of the place - people knew they were not real people. Occasionally new users were confused by the existence of the rather strange sock puppets but were usually put straight quite quickly by the community as a whole. Would this ruling have meant that a confused newbie could complain to the internet police and get the site shut down and the Admin prosecuted for computer fraud? The internet should not be ruled by the law of the playground This ruling, while not entirely outrageous, uses the fact that MySpace's Terms of Service require users to give "truthful and accurate" information - e.g. no fake avatars. Surely this gives MySpace the right to terminate an account - not the criminal justice system the right to prosecute? Except when everybody looks the other way when they see cyberbullying then what choice does the state have but to step in? The issue should be the intent to use the fake profile for cyberbullying, not the fact that the profile existed. The case feels a bit like a junior high playground where everybody knows the fat kid is getting beaten up, but nobody wants to tell the teacher because you don't rat out your classmates - even if everybody knows they're doing something wrong - but nobody stands up for the fat kid either because they don't want to become a target themselves, so when the fat kid finally tells his parents, the punishment is doubly harsh because everybody should have known better - not just the bully. We as a society need to do a better job of looking out for each other and of condeming people and practices which are anti-social and encouraging each other to treat each other with respect or we will end up with the state doing it for us - much like a teacher who gives a whole class detention because she doesn't know which student committed the crime. If this happens, we'll all be the worse because we'll have lost the freedom of the internet all because of the law of the playground. Internet 2008-12-02 09:38:17 http://www.i-com.net/blog/criminalising-fake-avatars-means-everybody-loses-127/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/winning-the-trust-of-new-customers-online-62/ One of my first ever SEO clients had a small e-commerce site. His was a new business, not yet a year old, and he found that although he had an attractive website, a steady amount of traffic, great prices and was very particular about his customer service - he would phone customers about their orders if he experienced even a minor delay in shipping a product - his conversion rates remained quite poor. The main problem he had was down to trust - people were unaware of his brand and were scared to spend 100-200 pounds with no real reassurances about the quality of his business. This is not an isolated problem for e-commerce sites who are not household names. There are a few ways, however, to help build trust with new customers so that they feel safe providing you with credit card details and spending their money with you. Put a phone number on the site - People assume if the only way to contact you is by email that they will never get a response. By showing your willingness to speak to customers, they will feel safer placing an order because they'll know they can get in touch with a person should something go wrong. Tell them your site is secure - Use those logos about secure shopping and credit card protection. People worry about theft and fraud on the internet and you need to reassure them that you're doing everything to keep their details safe. Give them guarantees - Have a clearly laid out policy of how the order process works. Explain how goods are despatched, tell people how long it will take for their order to arrive and tell people what they should do should an order fail to arrive Have a clear returns policy on the site - If people know that you're willing to let them change their minds, or sort out problems with orders they'll feel safer placing an order. Provide a physical address for your business - Let people know that you operate out of real, legitimate offices, not through an email address or a P.O. Box. They want to know that a company is established enough to have offices with employees and phones. Add customer reviews and testimonials - Let people know that you have customers and they're happy with your service. Tell them about your business - Use your About Us page to talk about the history of your business, your attitude towards your customers and to even give short bios of your staff. If they feel they know a bit about you and you're not hiding behind internet anonymity, people will trust you more. If you can get that first sale, even a small one, off a new visitor to your website and provide a great service, you'll get a repeat customer and possibly some word-of-mouth business too. So give them every reason they can to trust you enough to place that first order by being as open and clear about how you do business as you possibly can. Internet Marketing 2008-07-31 09:22:13 http://www.i-com.net/blog/winning-the-trust-of-new-customers-online-62/ http://www.i-com.net/blog/avg-link-scanner-creates-web-traffic-jam-38/ AVG, once seen as one of the best free anti-virus software packages on the market is now a webmaster's nightmare.  Some of you may be aware that the latest version of AVG (version 8) comes with a new feature called Link Scanner. Link Scanner pre-scans links on a web search results page to determine whether they are safe to visit. What seemed a good idea to start with soon turned into a fairly large issue. Early on, we noticed problems with using the link scanner when our internet connection started to suffer noticeably. The link scanner on all machines in our office was causing considerable bandwidth usage and slowing our internet connection down. We were quick to turn this feature off. Little did we realise at that point another problem lurked around the corner which was to be a webmaster nightmare. With an estimated 20 million users worldwide using AVG 8 and a possibly 50 million users still to upgrade, webmasters are faced with the giant problem of fake traffic. These pre-link checks are skewing web logs all over the world by creating traffic statistics that aren't real human traffic. Comments from fellow webmasters have shown that in some cases website statistics are being skewed by as much as 40%. Effectively, the more you are shown in the search results the more your web statistics are likely to be distorted. What AVG does not realise is that for site optimisers and website owners this is causing a serious issue because it affects decisions that are made based on web stats. AVGs focus is on security above and beyond the statistical issues that are being caused.  However, recent communication from Roger Thompson of AVG suggests that they are looking to work with webmasters to help resolve these issues. At the moment the focus has been on those that rely on log files for their analysis, so the question I hear you asking is does the link scanner effect those Analytic packages that rely on JavaScript? The answer is YES. My research has led me to understand that because AVG is trying to mimic human activity it executes JavaScript. So the next question on many people's mind is whether Google Analytics is being affected. As yet I don't have a definite answer, but I will post again when more is found on this hot topic. To find out more on Link Scanner and JavaScript read this article: http://judah.webanalyticsdemystified.com/2008/06/avg-linkscanner-bot-executes-javascript.html If youre worried about AVG affecting your Google AdWords then don't worry, it seems that AVG have a work around on this see: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/19/avg_linkscanner_and_adwords/ for more info. For some there is an extended issue that a large amount of bandwidth and server storage is being used by such a feature. If your hosting company limits you on either of these, keep an eye out as you could be seeing a rather large bill soon. We are interested in hearing your views, opinions and results on any analysis so please post your comments below. Web Development 2008-06-23 11:13:32 http://www.i-com.net/blog/avg-link-scanner-creates-web-traffic-jam-38/