The Bad Guys

Forbes.com has a must read article-- The Attack of the Blogs. The article looks at the dark side of blogging, sharing vignettes of harassment, loss revenues ,and blatant censorship.

It is a chilling account of guerrilla marketing and a reminder that insurgents--whether in real wars or business wars are changing the rules of engagement. Be sure to read the sidebars, I was particularly devastated by the story of Maureen O'Gara-- a reporter that Forbes describes as "Intrepid"

When O'Gara's story about her quest appeared in Linux Business News, an online magazine, indignant bloggers went on the attack. They said the story was unethical and demanded that the site take it down. (So much for free speech.) When the site's publisher, Sys-Con Media, refused, anonymous callers bombarded employees with obscene phone calls and e-mails.They also badgered Sys-Con's advertisers to get them to pull ads from Sys-Con sites. Hackers shut down Sys-Con's Web site for four days, robbing it of $200,000 in ad revenue.

So Sys-Con caved in, yanking the story and agreeing to forgo articles written by O'Gara. "What are my options?We have criminal people who were taking us hostage, trying to destroy my business,"says Sys-Con Chief Fuat Kircaali.

Excuse me what are your options?  You gotta be jokin. Perhaps Fuat Kircaali should take a cue from government. You don't deal with  terrorists. While there are many facets of this article that beg discussion, this sidebar is the most disturbing.

.Shame on Sys-Con .While I would never advocate hacking  anyone's website, I think the journalistic ethics at stake are huge They had an opportunity to stand up for what is right and just and they blew it.

Forbes is not shy on what strategy they would use to stop the blogging insurgency.

Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.

For equal balance the article does make this concession about the scope of the problem.

Attack blogs are but a sliver of the rapidly expanding blogosphere. A hundred thousand new blogs are created every day, more than one new blog per second, says Technorati, a firm in San Francisco that tracks the content of 20 million active blogs.

The article will make you reflect about your own business ethics,the advice you give to clients and what you would do if you became a victim of online slander.

A year ago I wrote about  such a victim--it happens to be my cousin Larry's son--Josh. The New York Times wrote about him as well. He along with several other unsuspecting high school students applied for a scholarship from the National Academy of American Scholars and found themselves victims of the websites anti-Semitic campaign.

Despite years of writing to congressmen, senators, attorney generals,a yeshiva that linked to the scholarship site and various other organizations,Larry failed in banning the organization or getting the vitriolic lies removed . 

The post in my blog did get the yeshiva to remove the organization from its scholarship link and earned me a less than flattering article in their school newspaper.

I happened upon the Forbes.com article while reading a post by Teresa Valdez Klein on Blog Business Summit. The article, Don't want an attack of the blogs? Don't Ask For One. provides a great counter balance  to the Forbes Article. In this post, Klein shares the story of a blogger who uncovered some devious on-goings by Sony and whose blog resulted in Sony having to "blink".

The good guys vs. the bad guys. Stay tuned.