Erasing the digital past

Page 29
Internet
CULTURE
SOCIÉTÉ
16:28
ENJEUX
16/05/11
DÉCOUVERTES
29-30-619-Steph:DECOUVERTES
[88]
Erasing the digital past
DROIT (PAYANT) A L’OUBLI. Avec la diffusion souvent incontrôlée d’informations personnelles sur le web, la réputation
d’un nombre croissant d’internautes est de plus en plus souvent mise en cause. Des entreprises spécialisées dans le
«nettoyage» du Net sont ainsi apparues ces dernières années. Comment préserver son anonymat ou gérer son e-réputation face au développement exponentiel des réseaux sociaux et des moteurs de recherche toujours plus performants ?
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BY NICK BILTON
Erasing the digital past
Supprimer vos infos personnelles
sur le net
high school (US) lycée / to drop into entrer /
vacations (US) = holidays (GB).
2. to date rencontrer, sortir avec qn / to be in
the picture ici apparaître en photo (jeu de mots
avec l’exp. to be in the picture (fig.) être au
courant / to make, made, made matters worse
aggraver les choses.
i
Michael Fertik, chief executive of the reputation management company Reputation.com,
during a meeting in Redwood City, Calif. (HEIDI SCHUMANN/THE NEW YORK TIMES)
he Internet never forgets. Just ask the
New York City high school teacher who
recently divorced his wife of five years.
Drop his name into Google, and his ex-wife
appears in pictures of vacations and Christmas parties.
2. “It’s difficult when you’re trying to date
and your ex is still in the picture, so to
speak,” said the teacher, who didn’t want to
make matters worse by having his name in
a newspaper.
3. The same goes for the Philadelphia physiologist who became unwittingly linked to
a consumer advocacy site, when it listed him
as a graduate of a distance learning school
that was shut down. “I felt totally victimized
because there was nothing I could do,” said
the physiologist, who spoke on the condition
T
of anonymity because he did not want added
attention. “My case load started to dry up.”
Enter the www
4. At first, some tried manipulating the
Web results on their own, by doing things
like manually deleting photos from Flickr,
revising Facebook pages and asking bloggers
to remove offending posts. But like a metastasized cancer, the incriminating data had
embedded itself into the nether reaches of
cyberspace, etched into archives, algorithms
and a web of hyperlinks.
5. After failing to rid the negative sites
on their own, most turned to a new breed
of Web specialists known as online reputation managers, who offer to expunge
negatives posts, bury unfavorable h
3. unwittingly involontairement, malgré soi /
to link relier, connecter, associer / consumer
consommateur / advocacy group groupe de
défense / graduate diplômé (licence) / to victimize persécuter / case load nombres de dossiers (à traiter), charge de travail / to dry up
s’épuiser, se tarir, ici diminuer (progressivement).
4. on one’s own tout seul / to delete supprimer,
effacer / to revise corriger / to remove supprimer / offending blessant, désagréable / post ici
message / to embed incruster, ici graver, inscrire
/ nether reaches profondeurs / to etch graver
/ hyperlink hyperlien.
5. to fail ne pas réussir à / to rid, ridded or rid
(se) débarrasser (de), ici effacer, supprimer /
breed race, espèce, catégorie / to expunge
effacer, supprimer / to bury ensevelir, enfouir,
dissimuler /
Du 26 mai au 8 juin 2011 VOCABLE • 29
search recherche(s) / to monitor contrôler, surveiller.
6. image fixer spécialiste de l’image (de marque),
de la réputation (d’une entreprise) (to fix réparer)
/ stake enjeu, intérêt / handler agent, prestataire / to edit mettre en forme, corriger (en vue
d’une publication) / array éventail, variété /
lawyer avocat / downside inconvénient, aspect
négatif / to overshare partager, divulguer, afficher
un nombre excessif d’informations personnelles
/ to catch, caught, caught up rattraper son retard,
ici prendre de l’ampleur, (commencer à) avoir
des conséquences / threat menace / privacy vie
privée, intimité / to figure out comprendre, découvrir / toothpaste dentifrice / bottle ici tube.
7. to tweak modifier / to boil down to se résumer,
se borner à / to game jouer avec, ici leurrer (pour
qu’une page s’affiche en premier), optimiser /
search engine moteur de recherche / content
contenu / to set, set, set up créer.
8. to push down (faire) descendre, reculer.
9. further plus loin / to rank classer / to trick
tromper, leurrer / dummy faux, factice.
10. item article / fairness honnêteté / challenging
difficile / so far jusqu’à présent / to elude échapper à.
11. savvy expert, calé, rompu (à) / currently
actuellement / to house loger, installer / to circumvent contourner / freelancer indépendant.
12. to frame encadrer / chief executive officer
PDG / fame célébrité, gloire.
13. widely largement, fortement / to charge facturer / run-of-the-mill ordinaire, banal / typically
généralement / to average atteindre une
moyenne de / due to en raison de.
14. founder fondateur / last name nom de
famille, patronyme / well off bien loti, ici you’re...
better off vous aurez plus de chance, ce sera plus
facile (pour vous) / definitely sans aucun doute,
assurément / you’ll have your work cut out for
you vous aurez du pain sur la planche, ça ne sera
pas facile.
30 • VOCABLE Du 26 mai au 8 juin 2011
16:28
Page 30
DÉCOUVERTES
16/05/11
CULTURE
ENJEUX
SOCIÉTÉ
29-30-619-Steph:DECOUVERTES
search results and monitor a client’s virtual image.
6. Online image fixers are not entirely new.
For years now, big corporations and those
with financial stakes in their Web presence
have employed handlers to edit their online
reputation – often as part of the array of services offered by a large public relations firm,
lawyers or image consultants. But as everyday people began living more of their lives
online, whether it’s blogging about dinner
or posting vacation photos on Facebook, the
downside to oversharing
online began to catch
up. “Social networks, online comments and oversharing online have created a threat to
everyone’s reputation
and privacy,” said Fertik
of Reputation.com. “Now
people are trying to figure
out how to put that toothpaste back in the
bottle.”
10. They may also contact the webmaster
or blogger directly, especially with smaller
sites, and ask that the specific items be removed, usually by appealing to their sense
of fairness. Some sites are more challenging than others. Wikipedia can be edited
by anyone. Erasing an image from Google
has so far eluded Tom and others.
How it works
11. While Reputation.com has more
than 120 employees, the same service can
be offered by a single
savvy
programmer.
Tom’s Metal Rabbit Media is currently housed
in his sunny two-bedroom apartment in
Chelsea, where he
spends his day in front
of two computers, writing code that tries to
circumvent search engines. The company
has one employee and two freelancers.
12. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, he
was preparing a briefing for a new client,
describing how he would “fix” Wikipedia
and the top search results on various search
engines. On the walls of his office were
framed copies of Google search results and
Wikipedia entries of clients: a reality television star, a movie actress and a chief executive officer. Tom calls it his “wall of
fame.”
13. The price of looking good online varies
widely. Reputation.com charges $120 to
$600 a year for run-of-the-mill cases.
“Celebrities, politicians and high-level executives aren’t so lucky,” Tom said. “Their
programs typically average between $5,000
and $10,000 a month due to the higher
level of finesse necessary and because the
stakes are much higher.”
14. “The hardest thing is when you have a
very unique name,” added Don Sorenson,
the founder of Big Blue Robot, an online
reputation management company in Orem,
Utah, that works with corporations. “If you
have a last name like Smith or Brown,
you’re going to be better off, but if you have
a unique name you will definitely have
your work cut out for you.” At that point,
some people have been known to legally
change their name. ●
Online reputation
managers go further by
exploiting how search
engines like Google and
Bing work.
Tactics
7. Once something is online, it can be
very difficult, if not impossible, to delete.
So tweaking one’s online reputation usually boils down to gaming the search engines. Image-conscious people with an understanding of the Web’s architecture can
try doing it themselves, by populating the
Web with favorable content. That might involve setting up their own website or blog,
or signing up for popular social networks
like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
8. With any luck, those sites will appear
first on a Web search and push down any
offending material. But these tactics have
their limits, especially when the websites
in question are popular and optimized for
search engines.
9. That’s when the experts are called in. Online reputation managers go further by exploiting how search engines like Google
and Bing work, which is to rank Web pages
based on how often they are linked from
other sites. To trick the search engines,
these managers employ programmers who
create dummy websites that link to a
client’s approved list of search results. The
more links, the higher the approved sites
rank.