Phorm Edits Negative History Right Out Of Wikipedia

from the and-gets-called-on-it dept

Tue, Apr 8th 2008 3:38pm — Mike Masnick

Phorm, the controversial "former" adware company that is aggressively defending its new ads-based-on-your-clickstream program, despite some serious questions about its legality apparently became a little "overzealous" in its defense, editing its own Wikipedia page to erase many of the negative stories about the company. Of course, doing that backfired pretty quickly, as the company got called out on it (and the edits got reverted). While first suggesting that it was merely trying to correct "inaccuracies" (such as questions over its legality?), the company admitted it was a bit too aggressive, and was unfamiliar with the rule that you're not supposed to edit your own Wikipedia entry.

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Filed Under: clickstream tracking, controversy, wikipedia
Companies: phorm, wikipedia

8 Comments

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Richard Moriarty, 8 Apr 2008 @ 4:03pm

who what what
I'm always amazed when I see stories like this. Which member of an organization decides that it is his job to go around editting stories about said organization? Is that a task reserved for executives? Techies? Do they have designated wikipedia managers?
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Logan Thornton, 8 Apr 2008 @ 4:17pm

Well...
If it's good enough for Jimmy Wales, I guess it's good enough for Phorm.
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Mark Tomlinson, 8 Apr 2008 @ 5:39pm

"I'm always amazed when I see stories like this. Which member of an organization decides that it is his job to go around editting stories about said organization? Is that a task reserved for executives? Techies? Do they have designated wikipedia managers?"

It's the job of the guys in PR.
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Rabble Babble, 8 Apr 2008 @ 6:07pm

Spy vs Spy
Apparently this spying has been going on for some time, and not just in the UK. How soon before there is a bill in congress to give these people retroactive immunity similar to the telephone companies ?

It would be fun to pit one against the other. I'm sure that there is some clever gambit to start the ball rolling.
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adm, 8 Apr 2008 @ 10:36pm

not a rule, really, just bad form
i looked into this a few months ago. as far as i know, it's not actually a rule (within the Wikipedia community) that you can't edit your own wikipedia entry, but it's strongly discouraged.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2008 @ 12:40am

Re: not a rule, really, just bad form
i looked into this a few months ago. as far as i know, it's not actually a rule (within the Wikipedia community) that you can't edit your own wikipedia entry, but it's strongly discouraged.

You apparently didn't look very very hard then. Heres the Wikipedia Conflict of Interest policy against it.
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Wyatt Ditzler, 9 Apr 2008 @ 1:34pm

Too easy
One of the drawbacks of electronic records such as wikipedia: they can be changed all too easily. Perhaps history will be completely altered in 100 years. That is if the electronic records survive that long.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2008 @ 8:34pm

Re: Re: not a rule, really, just bad form
You apparently didn't look very very hard then. Heres the Wikipedia Conflict of Interest policy against it.

Actually, that policy doesn't completely ban the practice. It does say though that such edits should be avoided or done with great caution. It then describes what is required of such edits. Phorm blatantly ignored those requirements.
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