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Four years ago, Julie Aronson, Connecticut substitute teacher, faced up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of endangering minors. Why? Apparently, her computer became infected with spyware that started displaying pornographic images, which were inadvertently viewed by the students in her class.

Computer security professionals, including Sunbelt Software Inc, CEO Alex Eckelberry, argued that Aronson was an innocent victim of the spyware program.

“The stress of this thing, it just totally freaked her out, “Eckelberry, who led the team of computer investigators responsible for analyzing the school computer used by Aronson, told ComputerWorld. “For four years, she’s been sitting there with this thing hanging over her.”

So are we responsible for the spyware, adware, and viruses that infect our computers? Are we responsible for the content that these programs may display? If the prosecutors in this case had been able to make the charges stick, we might be facing a brave new world in which virus creators have much, much more control over our lives than anyone deserves to have.

A guilty verdict would have opened the floodgates for similar cases, and made us all question the motives of our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and the computers that use.

As it is, Aronson will pay a fine of $100 and have her Connecticut teaching credentials revoked. For Aronson, who was pregnant at the time of the 2004 incident, this is undoubtedly a small price to pay.

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A recent feature on Computerworld.com, discusses the possibility of permanently erasing your digital past. The common
understanding is that once something is on the Internet, it is
forever, which is why college students are advised to use
discretion when it comes to posting drunken pictures of
themselves on their MySpace pages.

Suppressing negative search engine results is an industry unto
itself, and it is called online reputation management. Whole
companies are devoted to this, as sort of a mix of online PR and
a little ranking manipulation of certain pages that clients
would like to see disappear.

But is it possible to make pages disappear for good? It is, but
traditional methods of reputation repair, like litigation,
don’t work as well in this case. The best thing to do,
according to a Google spokesperson, is to “contact the
webmaster of the page or the Internet hosting companies or
ISP’s hosting the content to find out their content
removal policies.”

Common sense would dictate that you use discretion when adding
or lending your name to causes, forum posts, and organizations,
but if factors out of your control result in less than desirable
search engine results in your name, you may want to consider a
little online reputation management of your own, whether through
a company or by directly contacting the source. Mistakes can
happen, and it is nice to know that we might not, necessarily,
have to suffer for them forever in the vast information matrix
of the Internet.

Related articles on Online Reputation Management

• What does your reputation say about you?
• Revising Your LinkedIn Profile: Who’s Looking at YOU?
• Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) Market Size?

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As more businesses realize the value of interactive website
features and social media techniques, DelMonte, makers of Meow Mix cat food, has recently debuted a new interactive website and a game show to promote its new Wholesome Goodness line of cat food.

The website features interactive games called Cat Capades, which allows players to use their “house cat” instincts to overcome household obstacles and challenges.

“We know that cat parents feel a kinship with their cats,
and it’s not uncommon for them to ‘know”
what’s going on their heads—what they think and
feel,” Alison Olsson, account executive for Agency.com,
said in a recent email to DMNews. “We knew this would be
especially fun for cat lovers, because they are familiar with
many of the cat behaviors highlighted in the games.”

Social media strategies are being employed by many companies in
the hopes to reach an increasingly Internet savvy and Internet
based audience. Cereal companies, like General Mills, have
offerings similar to the Meow Mix Site, including an interactive
avatar-based town called Millsbury, which is designed to provide
a place for children to share avatars and items with other
Internet users in their demographics.

Based on trends in Internet usage and social media prevalence
and popularity, it isn’t a stretch to imagine the
websites of the future as increasingly more interactive and
geared toward specific interests and demographics.

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Yahoo Inc recently added new social features to its Yahoo buzz social news site, currently in beta version. Among the new features are the ability for users to incorporate information from their Yahoo profile onto the site, and an updates section which allows users to find content that their friends have voted for, as well as a comments section.

These updates are part of Yahoo’s Yahoo Open Strategy, which the company first announced in April of this year. The purpose of this strategy, according to Yahoo, Inc, is to allow users to replicate the social experience of social networks like MySpace and Facebook via their Yahoo profiles.

“It is reviewing Yahoo from the inside out, across all of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience as well, “ Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer, said during a keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco in April.

The Yahoo Buzz expansion updates come less than a week after a proposed advertising deal with Google Inc failed to come to fruition.

Related articles

• Could Facebook Partner With iTunes?
• Making Money On MySpace: Payments and Virtual Gifts Coming Soon
• Yahoo Buzz plugs into social network
• Yahoo to Radically Open Its Platforms

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Image via CrunchBase

Don’t have time to visit colleges in person? CollegeClickTv.com might just be the answer to your problem. The recently launched site allows prospective students to download videos featuring popular college campuses, as well as interviews with students, professors, and even local businesses.

“The videos give viewers an idea of what the full experience is on that campus, “ Pere Partnership agency head Glenn Pere told DMNews recently.

Pere added that he created the site after observing that his golf partner did not have time to drive his college-aged daughter to prospective schools in person and still maintain his golf game.

Thanks to an early viral marketing campaign, the site has a YouTube page, a Facebook presence and more than 30,000 professionally produced videos from more than 200 universities across the country.

Recent studies show that viral marketing is quickly becoming a popular choice for many businesses as more people begin to realize the effectiveness of these so called “word of mouth campaigns.”

Related articles

• Viral Videos - How The Pros Do It
• The Social Graph’s Effect on Video Marketing
• Search High Resolution Videos on YouTube

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A recent survey, conducted by Nielsen Online and Eloqua, Inc revealed that 60% of marketers will be making the transition from paper-based to online-based ad and marketing campaigns.

This trend is due in part increased awareness of the importance of Internet marketing, including SEO and SEM methods, as well as the growing trend of “green” or environmentally friendly practices.

“What’s good for the environment can also be great for businesses,” says Brian Kardon, Chief Marketing Officer at Eloqua.

The same study also revealed that, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, 90% of marketers support a more environmentally friendly marketing industry, and an overall decline in the amount of paper-based marketing materials, i.e. brochures, fliers and physical catalogues is also expected to decrease over the course of the next year.

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