Nation

Comments (0) By James Ridgeway Tuesday, Aug 15 2000

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Key to CyberSleuth's work is ferreting out the motivation behind "On-Line Anti-Corporate Activism," be it a "legitimate complaint" or "behavior influencing" (e.g., an "environmental group targeting an oil company, stock manipulation, revenge, mis or disinformation, fraud, [or] extortion"). Once eWatch figures out what's going on, it launches a "containment" by "neutralizing the information appearing online, [and] then neutralizing" the offending agent. "This may mean something as simple as removing a posting from a Web message board on Yahoo! or shuttering a terrorist Web site," says eWatch. "The objective is to not only stop the spread of incorrect information, but ensure that what has already spread is also eliminated."

The service boasts that it can tell companies what consumers and professionals are saying and reading about their services, products, industry, and competitors. "You'll hear rumors before they start to spread." WebWatch, a part of the service, "enables you to keep an eye on every Web site that affects your business"—whether it is the competition, an activist group, a nosy government agency, plaintiffs, defendants, "or even your own site." For a big company, eWatch is cheap, starting at $16,200 a year.

Forgive us our Passes With the major candidates embarked on a nonstop pray-a-thon, fundamentalists are chomping at the bit to have the Lord's Prayer offered in some way at football games. Although the Supreme Court ruled against allowing students to lead crowds in prayer before games, a North Carolina outfit called We Still Pray hopes to encourage "spontaneous" prayer. "We are encouraging everyone that attends football games to join in the Lord's Prayer immediately and spontaneously as soon as the national anthem is complete," said Reverend Wendell Runion. Additional reporting: Kate Cortesi