We’ve all seen how presumably normal people, combined with an anonymous profile, can become “comment trolls” of the worst type. Discussions over heated topics quickly spiral into name-calling and curse-word-filled rants against the other side, resulting in the equivalent of an online riot where nothing gets accomplished.
It’s amazing how real names attached to real profiles make the discussion civil and polite. When we turned our comments over to Facebook on several sites about a year ago, the quality of debate and discussion improved immensely.
Everyone understands that when your online reputation is at stake, the cursing, screaming and personal attacks drop significantly.
Some will argue that it is in the best interest of the social networks to to have real profiles associated with real people. That’s true, but I think we all get a better online experience when people think twice about what they say online.
Their online reputation depends on it – as it should.
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
The End of the Anonymous Internet is Near
The launch of Google+ has caused an old issue to boil to the surface: should you be required to use your real name when signing up for Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking services? The Big 3 think so and whether you agree or not, you’re witnessing the beginning of the end of the anonymous internet.
We’ve all seen how presumably normal people, combined with an anonymous profile, can become “comment trolls” of the worst type. Discussions over heated topics quickly spiral into name-calling and curse-word-filled rants against the other side, resulting in the equivalent of an online riot where nothing gets accomplished.
It’s amazing how real names attached to real profiles make the discussion civil and polite. When we turned our comments over to Facebook on several sites about a year ago, the quality of debate and discussion improved immensely.
Everyone understands that when your online reputation is at stake, the cursing, screaming and personal attacks drop significantly.
Some will argue that it is in the best interest of the social networks to to have real profiles associated with real people. That’s true, but I think we all get a better online experience when people think twice about what they say online.
Their online reputation depends on it – as it should.
We’ve all seen how presumably normal people, combined with an anonymous profile, can become “comment trolls” of the worst type. Discussions over heated topics quickly spiral into name-calling and curse-word-filled rants against the other side, resulting in the equivalent of an online riot where nothing gets accomplished.
It’s amazing how real names attached to real profiles make the discussion civil and polite. When we turned our comments over to Facebook on several sites about a year ago, the quality of debate and discussion improved immensely.
Everyone understands that when your online reputation is at stake, the cursing, screaming and personal attacks drop significantly.
Some will argue that it is in the best interest of the social networks to to have real profiles associated with real people. That’s true, but I think we all get a better online experience when people think twice about what they say online.
Their online reputation depends on it – as it should.
Google Offers Easy Online Reputation Monitoring
The ability to monitor how your name is used online has been around for some time. By creating an RSS feed with your name as the keyword, you could then be alerted in your feed reader anytime your name (or company name or website) was posted online. The process to set up the feed, while easy for power Internet users, wasn’t “non-techie” ready – until now.
If you have a Gmail account, you can now simply login to your Google Dashboard and set up alerts for your name or email address. Anytime your name or email is posted online, you’ll be notified automatically.
Now that getting notified is easy, the hard part is still managing your reputation online. I recommend everyone monitor their own name as well as the names of their children. As my daughter begins 8th grade, it will be important for me as a father to know when her name is being used on any social networking service or blog.
Google’s new “Me on the Web” service makes it easy.
If you have a Gmail account, you can now simply login to your Google Dashboard and set up alerts for your name or email address. Anytime your name or email is posted online, you’ll be notified automatically.
Now that getting notified is easy, the hard part is still managing your reputation online. I recommend everyone monitor their own name as well as the names of their children. As my daughter begins 8th grade, it will be important for me as a father to know when her name is being used on any social networking service or blog.
Google’s new “Me on the Web” service makes it easy.
How Social Network Friends Can Affect Your Online Reputation
Do you accept “friend” requests from everyone who asks for it through your Facebook and LinkedIn account? I do. Even people I’ve met just once at a conference. But lately I’ve started to think it may not be a good idea. Consider the case of Bernie Madoff, the $50 billion dollar ponzi scheme mastermind. There were probably, dozens, if not hundreds of investment professionals that worked in the industry who now have to work backward to separate themselves from Madoff’s firm. They took photos with him at events and probably sent business his way on more than one occasion. And all thought they knew him as a friend. Certainly they thought they knew his reputation better than a person they met one time at a conference.
Some people may argue that they way they use social networks is to connect with people – regardless of how thin those connections may be. But keep in mind that there is no degree of friend designation on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. That person I met once at a conference is the same type of “friend” as my college roommate whom I’ve known for 20 years on Facebook. It would be interesting to be able to categorize people as “friends” or “acquaintances” for people we don’t know very well.
I consider “friends” to be people I would trust to babysit my daughter. Yet I have over 600 “friends” on Facebook that I probably wouldn’t even recognize if they walked into my office at this very moment. And yet I “friend” them without a second thought – connecting them, if in just a small way, to my own online reputation. Heaven forbid they should do something awful, I might have some explaining to do when asked why they are my friend on Facebook.
Offline, you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. Why should online be any different?
Some people may argue that they way they use social networks is to connect with people – regardless of how thin those connections may be. But keep in mind that there is no degree of friend designation on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. That person I met once at a conference is the same type of “friend” as my college roommate whom I’ve known for 20 years on Facebook. It would be interesting to be able to categorize people as “friends” or “acquaintances” for people we don’t know very well.
I consider “friends” to be people I would trust to babysit my daughter. Yet I have over 600 “friends” on Facebook that I probably wouldn’t even recognize if they walked into my office at this very moment. And yet I “friend” them without a second thought – connecting them, if in just a small way, to my own online reputation. Heaven forbid they should do something awful, I might have some explaining to do when asked why they are my friend on Facebook.
Offline, you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. Why should online be any different?
Should You Have Some Control Over Your Own Online Reputation?
A few years ago, Emile and I briefly worked on the idea of creating a dating reputation site, whereby you’d be able to search our engine for the name of your date and read comments left by people who had previously been on a date with that person. As you can imagine, there were a host of problems right from the start that made the site difficult to execute. The obvious issue of trying to ensure the comments you were viewing were for the right “John Smith” you had a date with that evening was just one of the many, many issues we tried to tackle. Privacy issues were another.
But there were also a number of interesting things we came across that we didn’t expect. When we floated the idea to several people in the digital identity industry as well as several people who study online ethics, one person’s comments struck us as odd. She stated that such a site should include the ability to control every piece of information about the person being commented on. In fact, she truly believed that everyone should have full control of their own reputation online. This made no sense to me. In the offline world, a person does not have control over their reputation. Sure, you can act in a way that improves your reputation, but ultimately your reputation is controlled by everyone who knows you. It’s something that can be tweaked and adjusted based on your own behavior, but full control? I don’t think so.
So why should the online world be any different? Just as a poor reputation can cause you to lose out on a job opportunity (or a date) in the offline world, the online world can have the same affect. With one exception – there is no central database of “reputation” that people in the offline world can go to. Prior to the world wide web, you had to connect to someone who knew a person to get their opinion – and then it was just one person’s opinion. Today, Google, Yahoo!, MSN and more offer a central database of information on people. And it is a database that doesn’t forget, forgive or die. That old friendship that soured five years ago could be forgotten as lives moved in different directions. But the nasty comment you left on your blog and later regretted – Google never forgets that thanks to the magic of caching – even if you delete it.
It would be interesting to have two types of search results that I could view when I was searching a person – what they wanted me to see, and what the search engine thought was the best overall represenation of that person. When I search for John Doe, another button perhaps would be added to Google’s home page under the search box: Google Search, I’m Feeling Lucky, and….”John Doe’s Results”, where I see the results that John wants the world to see when they search on him.
In the end, the online world operates a lot like the offline world when it comes to reputation. Just like an offline jerk can begin to improve his reputation by being kinder to his fellow human beings, you can massage your online reputation by adding connections and content that pushes the past further into the past (and in this case, further down in the search engine results).
You do have control over your online reputation – to a point. A recent article by Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin is a good example of how a person can do just that.
By the way, we never launched the dating reputation site. In the end, we felt that unless we required everyone who left a comment on their date to use their verified real identity, it wouldn’t be of much use. Unless the goal was to ruin your date’s reputation.
The Wall Street Journal asks “Can You Go Overboard Trying to Monitor Your Online Reputation?”
In a Wall Street Journal blog post, Kelly Spors wonders if some of the companies that are monitoring their online reputations are going overboard with the whole thing. The people mentioned in the post think it is very “Big Brother” of companies like Comcast to reach out to individual bloggers when they post negatively about the company. My question to them would be “If you are blogging, are you expecting anyone to read it?”. I think bloggers have gotten into the mindset that their blogs are a place for them to vent, and no one will ever read it.
Fortunately and unfortunately, PR reps know the power blogs have in the search engines, as well as the power of word-of-mouth. As time goes on, this type of contact will become more and more commonplace, and PR agencies will begin getting more work as online reputation managers. It may be perceived as a bit of a stunt now, but I congratulate Comcast for acknowledging the online community, and it’s power in influencing the online reputation of a company.
Fortunately and unfortunately, PR reps know the power blogs have in the search engines, as well as the power of word-of-mouth. As time goes on, this type of contact will become more and more commonplace, and PR agencies will begin getting more work as online reputation managers. It may be perceived as a bit of a stunt now, but I congratulate Comcast for acknowledging the online community, and it’s power in influencing the online reputation of a company.
Pushing for Perfect Forward Secrecy, an Important Web Privacy Protection
When you access a Web site over an encrypted connection, you're using a protocol called HTTPS. But not all HTTPS connections are created equal. In the first few milliseconds after a browser connects securely to a server, an important choice is made: the browser sends a list of preferences for what kind of encryption it's willing to support, and the server replies with a verification certificate and picks a choice for encryption from the browser's list. These different encryption choices are called "cipher suites." Most of the time, users don't have to worry about which suite the browsers and servers are using, but in some cases it can make a big difference.
One important property is called "perfect forward secrecy," but only some servers and only some browsers are configured to support it. Sites that use perfect forward secrecy can provide better security to users in cases where the encrypted data is being monitored and recorded by a third party. That particular threat may have once seemed unlikely, but we now know that the NSA does exactly this kind of long-term storage of at least some encrypted communications as they flow through telecommunications hubs, in a collection effort it calls "upstream."
How can perfect forward secrecy help protect user privacy against that kind of threat? In order to understand that, it's helpful to have a basic idea of how HTTPS works in general. Every Web server that uses HTTPS has its own secret key that it uses to encrypt data that it sends to users. Specifically, it uses that secret key to generate a new "session key" that only the server and the browser know. Without that secret key, the traffic traveling back and forth between the user and the server is incomprehensible, to the NSA and to any other eavesdroppers.
But imagine that some of that incomprehensible data is being recorded anyway—as leaked NSA documents confirm the agency is doing. An eavesdropper who gets the secret key at any time in the future—even years later—can use it to decrypt all of the stored data! That means that the encrypted data, once stored, is only as secure as the secret key, which may be vulnerable to compromised server security or disclosure by the service provider.
That's where perfect forward secrecy comes in. When an encrypted connection uses perfect forward secrecy, that means that the session keys the server generates are truly ephemeral, and even somebody with access to the secret key can't later derive the relevant session key that would allow her to decrypt any particular HTTPS session. So intercepted encrypted data is protected from prying eyes long into the future, even if the website's secret key is later compromised.
It's important to note that no flavor of HTTPS, on its own, will protect the data once it's on the server. Web services should definitely take precautions to protect that data, too. Services should give user data the strongest legal protection possible, and minimize what they collect and store in the first place. But against the known threat of "upstream" data collection, supporting perfect forward secrecy is an essential step.
So who protects long-term privacy by supporting perfect forward secrecy? Unfortunately, it's not a very long list—but it's growing. Google made headlines when it became the first major web player to enable the feature in November of 2011. Facebook announced last month that, as part of security efforts that included turning on HTTPS by default for all users, it would enable perfect forward secrecy soon. And while it doesn't serve the same volume as those other sites, www.eff.org is also configured to use perfect forward secrecy. Outside of the web, emails encrypted using the OpenPGP standard do not have forward secrecy, but instant messages (or text messages) encrypted using the OTR protocol do.
Supporting the right cipher suites—and today, for the Web, that means ones that support perfect forward secrecy—is an important component of doing security correctly. But sites may need encouragement from users because, like HTTPS generally, supporting perfect forward secrecy doesn't come completely without a cost. In particular, it requires more computational resources to calculate the truly ephemeral session keys required.
It may not be as obvious a step as simply enabling HTTPS, but turning on perfect forward secrecy is an important improvement that protects users. More sites should enable it, and more users should demand it of the sites they trust with their private data.
One important property is called "perfect forward secrecy," but only some servers and only some browsers are configured to support it. Sites that use perfect forward secrecy can provide better security to users in cases where the encrypted data is being monitored and recorded by a third party. That particular threat may have once seemed unlikely, but we now know that the NSA does exactly this kind of long-term storage of at least some encrypted communications as they flow through telecommunications hubs, in a collection effort it calls "upstream."
How can perfect forward secrecy help protect user privacy against that kind of threat? In order to understand that, it's helpful to have a basic idea of how HTTPS works in general. Every Web server that uses HTTPS has its own secret key that it uses to encrypt data that it sends to users. Specifically, it uses that secret key to generate a new "session key" that only the server and the browser know. Without that secret key, the traffic traveling back and forth between the user and the server is incomprehensible, to the NSA and to any other eavesdroppers.
But imagine that some of that incomprehensible data is being recorded anyway—as leaked NSA documents confirm the agency is doing. An eavesdropper who gets the secret key at any time in the future—even years later—can use it to decrypt all of the stored data! That means that the encrypted data, once stored, is only as secure as the secret key, which may be vulnerable to compromised server security or disclosure by the service provider.
That's where perfect forward secrecy comes in. When an encrypted connection uses perfect forward secrecy, that means that the session keys the server generates are truly ephemeral, and even somebody with access to the secret key can't later derive the relevant session key that would allow her to decrypt any particular HTTPS session. So intercepted encrypted data is protected from prying eyes long into the future, even if the website's secret key is later compromised.
It's important to note that no flavor of HTTPS, on its own, will protect the data once it's on the server. Web services should definitely take precautions to protect that data, too. Services should give user data the strongest legal protection possible, and minimize what they collect and store in the first place. But against the known threat of "upstream" data collection, supporting perfect forward secrecy is an essential step.
So who protects long-term privacy by supporting perfect forward secrecy? Unfortunately, it's not a very long list—but it's growing. Google made headlines when it became the first major web player to enable the feature in November of 2011. Facebook announced last month that, as part of security efforts that included turning on HTTPS by default for all users, it would enable perfect forward secrecy soon. And while it doesn't serve the same volume as those other sites, www.eff.org is also configured to use perfect forward secrecy. Outside of the web, emails encrypted using the OpenPGP standard do not have forward secrecy, but instant messages (or text messages) encrypted using the OTR protocol do.
Supporting the right cipher suites—and today, for the Web, that means ones that support perfect forward secrecy—is an important component of doing security correctly. But sites may need encouragement from users because, like HTTPS generally, supporting perfect forward secrecy doesn't come completely without a cost. In particular, it requires more computational resources to calculate the truly ephemeral session keys required.
It may not be as obvious a step as simply enabling HTTPS, but turning on perfect forward secrecy is an important improvement that protects users. More sites should enable it, and more users should demand it of the sites they trust with their private data.
How to Improve Your Hotel’s Reputation
If you own or manage a hotel, you know that online reviews and digital presence are one of the best sources of new customers. Having an excellent reputation will help you gain more customers and you need to continually improve it to be the best. Whether you’re starting with no reputation, a bad reputation or a mediocre one, here are some tips to improve or restore it and get more business.
Reviews Influence Hotel Revenue
It is important to acknowledge that online reviews and your Digital Wall have a direct impact on the decisions that your potential customers make. Scholars are already studying the best way to visually represent online hotel reviews. It’s not just a small group of people browsing the internet to get additional information: this is their primary way of assessing the quality of the hotel they want to book and pay for online. Your reputation directly influence your revenue as a hotel.
Ask Customers for Feedback Personally
In order to improve your online reputation, it’s important to involve your clients in your business. Customers want to know that their feedback is read. Have a way for them to leave feedback during their stay, whether it is a feedback box or by talking to a member of staff. Here a list of useful online tools. You can even include a board to show the type of feedback that you have listened to and the changes that you have incorporated. Don’t always expect negative experiences. There may be a mixture, even when it sounds negative. If you are talking to the guests, ask them for more detail. It will help you get to the bottom of the issue and do more about it. It also makes the customer feel more appreciated.
Offer Incentives for Reviews
If a customer is happy, he or she will be less likely to leave some feedback. People are more likely to complain than offer praise! The best way of encouraging them is through incentives. You could offer a discount for their next stay or the chance to be placed into a draw for a free night at the hotel for leaving the feedback. This can be done upon checkout or you can send an email a few days later. The latter is often the best. Customers want to get out of the hotel when checking out as they have transport to get. Telling them the information then is less likely to be remembered.
You should also read: The Ultimate Guide to Avoid and Resolve Negative Reviews
Good reputation = Good Service
One of the biggest issues for customers is bad customer service. Show that you care by offering the best service. This includes all your staff, whether they are in the kitchen, on the front desk or cleaning rooms! Be helpful, no matter the time, and try to direct your guests around the city for their tourist spots. Offering good customer service and encouraging customers to leave feedback is the best way to improve your online reputation. You will soon find that the positives outweigh the negatives and you get more referrals.
The competitors’ threat
One of the most negative types of experiences for a hotel owner is when a competitor tries to put you down via false online reviews or any other types of illegal posting on the internet. In this scenario, there is nothing you can do in terms of service improvement and customer relationship management: your whole online presence has to be carefully analysed and your reputation restored via review removals, online PR strategies and even cyber forensics to take legal action.
Hotel Reputation Management Steps
Hotel reputation management requires 3 definite steps:
Monitoring
Image Control & PR
Negative content removal
You can read more on this here.
Bio
Twitter
Google+
LinkedIn
Latest Posts
Reviews Influence Hotel Revenue
It is important to acknowledge that online reviews and your Digital Wall have a direct impact on the decisions that your potential customers make. Scholars are already studying the best way to visually represent online hotel reviews. It’s not just a small group of people browsing the internet to get additional information: this is their primary way of assessing the quality of the hotel they want to book and pay for online. Your reputation directly influence your revenue as a hotel.
Ask Customers for Feedback Personally
In order to improve your online reputation, it’s important to involve your clients in your business. Customers want to know that their feedback is read. Have a way for them to leave feedback during their stay, whether it is a feedback box or by talking to a member of staff. Here a list of useful online tools. You can even include a board to show the type of feedback that you have listened to and the changes that you have incorporated. Don’t always expect negative experiences. There may be a mixture, even when it sounds negative. If you are talking to the guests, ask them for more detail. It will help you get to the bottom of the issue and do more about it. It also makes the customer feel more appreciated.
Offer Incentives for Reviews
If a customer is happy, he or she will be less likely to leave some feedback. People are more likely to complain than offer praise! The best way of encouraging them is through incentives. You could offer a discount for their next stay or the chance to be placed into a draw for a free night at the hotel for leaving the feedback. This can be done upon checkout or you can send an email a few days later. The latter is often the best. Customers want to get out of the hotel when checking out as they have transport to get. Telling them the information then is less likely to be remembered.
You should also read: The Ultimate Guide to Avoid and Resolve Negative Reviews
Good reputation = Good Service
One of the biggest issues for customers is bad customer service. Show that you care by offering the best service. This includes all your staff, whether they are in the kitchen, on the front desk or cleaning rooms! Be helpful, no matter the time, and try to direct your guests around the city for their tourist spots. Offering good customer service and encouraging customers to leave feedback is the best way to improve your online reputation. You will soon find that the positives outweigh the negatives and you get more referrals.
The competitors’ threat
One of the most negative types of experiences for a hotel owner is when a competitor tries to put you down via false online reviews or any other types of illegal posting on the internet. In this scenario, there is nothing you can do in terms of service improvement and customer relationship management: your whole online presence has to be carefully analysed and your reputation restored via review removals, online PR strategies and even cyber forensics to take legal action.
Hotel Reputation Management Steps
Hotel reputation management requires 3 definite steps:
Monitoring
Image Control & PR
Negative content removal
You can read more on this here.
Bio
Twitter
Google+
LinkedIn
Latest Posts
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