Top 10 worst things about the web

Top 10 worst things about the web

10. Over commercialisation
Shaun Nichols: At times, navigating the web can be a lot like walking through a giant bazaar of overenthusiastic street vendors and desperate used car salesmen.

While life in big cities such as London and San Francisco isn't exactly short of ad placements, it pales in comparison to the barrage of banner ads and pop-ups that accompany some sites.

Imagine walking down the street, and every time you pass a store front, someone jumps out and waves a flyer in your face or waves around an airline ticket or just leaps in your face and screams "You may have colon cancer and not even know it!"

In the book Spook Country, William Gibson wrote about a character who was so tired of advertisements that the mere sight of a company logo or trademark made her physically ill. I know the feeling; some times my trusty AdBlock tool is about the only thing keeping my lunch down.

Part of this is just economics: when you're giving content away for free, you have to make revenues other ways, usually through ads. While I have no problem with site hosts and content providers trying to make a living off their work, the whole process becomes very, very tiring sometimes.

Iain Thomson: Marc Andreessen once told me that Tim Berners-Lee called him up when he was developing the browser and gave him an earful for including the ability to include pictures on the internet. After my daily bombardment of adverts I can begin to see his point.

Few things on the web are as annoying as adverts, and we've all got our pet hates. Personally it's the adverts that play video at deafening volume as soon as they load, which in the past has led to a mouthful of tea going over a keyboard in surprise.

While there are now thankfully plug-ins to extract most advertisements from browsers, the ad boys and girls are constantly on the look-out for new ways to bypass them. Their argument is that they are just obeying clients' orders and opening up opportunities that readers may not have known about. Personally I call this the Yuppie Nuremberg defence: "I vas only paying zee mortgage."

Shaun quotes Gibson, so I shall return the favour and point to Neil Stephenson. A quick trawl through Snow Crash and The Diamond Age will show you very plausible examples of where this is going. As technology improves and we carry more and more technology that can identify us, advertising is going to become more intrusive, and increasingly sophisticated and personalised.

He also raises a very good point, however. Advertising pays the bills for most online content and, as people are still unwilling to pay for it themselves, the adverts are keeping the whole web running semi-profitably. It would be a poorer, smaller web if it wasn't for the adverts. I just wish advertising executives would learn the value of the rapier over the cudgel.

 
9. Overexposure
Shaun Nichols: Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube. We have become a society that is rapidly losing any sort of comprehension of the term 'too much information'.

The obsession with social networking and sharing has created a class of people whose sole desire is to become broadcast all over the web, a group some online gossip sites have termed 'fameballs'. When Jim Carey made The Truman Show 10 years ago, the idea of broadcasting a person's entire life was scary and surreal; these days it has its own term: 'lifecasting'.

It's ironic that people get so paranoid about the government tracking people through RFID and CCTV devices. Heck, half the population is already pretty much begging others to track them online.

Iain Thomson: In some ways the services Shaun mentions are an irritant, but they can serve a useful purpose. Last Christmas I was due to attend a party and found it had been cancelled. My partner Tweeted the news and we all got together anyway in another venue.

But this is a rare case. It's a sad but inescapable fact that most people's lives are just too dull to be worth all of the broadcasting going on. Do I care that a friend of a friend has just had a great cup of tea? Not in a million years, and I wish he'd just shut up about it.

But I think we're going to be facing something of a backlash against this sort of thing. Social networking sites in particular seem to come in and out of fashion on a two- or three-year cycle. MySpace is losing ground now but who remembers its predecessor Friendster? Facebook is proving more popular, but I think these things have their half life.

 
8. Conspiracy theories
Shaun Nichols: While the internet did a great service by allowing everyone to engage in intelligent discussion and debate, it also created a giant annoyance by giving a platform to every raving lunatic capable of typing the phrase: 'Wake up, sheeple.'

Conspiracy theories were around long before the web, but only in recent years have they gone from amusing to annoying. Probably because, on the internet, the person with the most time on their hands will often get the most exposure, and conspiracy theorists tend to have a lot of time on their hands.

The anonymity afforded by the internet doesn't help things either. In real life, the whack-jobs are usually easy to spot, particularly when they're standing behind tables full of leaflets and wearing big crazy hats and buttons. On the web, it's far easier for the conspiracy theorists to sneak into comment threads or blogs and spew their bizarre theories on an unsuspecting public.

Worst of all, these crazy conspiracy theories about the moon landing or a flat earth take away from the really important stuff, like the widespread conspiracy to get Steve Wozniak removed from Dancing with the Stars.

Iain Thomson: Misery may love company but insanity does as well, and the web is full of whack-jobs who really shouldn't be allowed out of a comfortable rubber room with no sharp implements.

Sure, conspiracy theorists have always been around, but the web has given them a communications tool far beyond handing out leaflets in public places before returning to their long-suffering families. Sadly, being in communication with those of a similar persuasion only re-enforces their fears and makes them more sure of what is right and how 99.9 recurring of the population is wrong.

Conspiracy theorists can be actively harmful. A case in point is the 11 September atrocity. I'm with Bill Maher on this one: conspiracy theorists have latched onto some wild and wacky theories that can be used to divert attention from the serious mistakes made in the run up to the tragedy.

Oh, and Shaun, face it, Woz is going to get chucked off Dancing with the Stars with a convenient leg injury because the television companies know he'll win no matter what because we geeks love him. However, they need to maintain the illusion that this is a show about dancing, not a crude popularity contest.

Besides, Woz knows too much about how Steve Jobs is in fact the hereditary leader of the Illuminati of Bavaria and will use Safari's capability for subliminal advertising to imprint our minds with ...


7. Memes
Shaun Nichols: OK, so every generation has its irritating memes. Smiley-face stickers, 'Frankie Says Relax' shirts and the phrase 'Don't have a cow, man' all come to mind. But there's just something far more prevalent, annoying and just flat out stupid about internet memes.

One only needs to frequent a social networking site, discussion board, or online game for a few days before sooner or later a stupid meme will crawl into your consciousness and poke at your sanity to the point where you find yourself captioning kitten photos with the words 'I can haz frontul lobotomy?'

With the wisdom of collective groups comes the utter stupidity of large groups of people as well. Fortunately, memes come and go fast enough that they usually avoid leaving any sort of real lasting damage. Right? k thx bye.

Iain Thomson: Damn you Shaun, you stole my punchline! The inventor of the term 'meme', Richard Dawkins, points out that they serve a very useful evolutionary purpose. They do, if not in the way that he suggested. Instead, they make me want to castrate some of their originators.

Memes have always existed, but they were usually confined to the pub bore who would bang on about something they'd got a bee in their bonnet about. For a period after Wayne's World came out, for example, there was always some git who used the word 'Not' to show how clever they were. The web has made the power of them much more effective.

While some memes are useful the majority are not, except in the case of identifying those you should be careful to avoid.


6. Stalking
Iain Thomson: One of the downsides of the web is that we all leave little electronic fingerprints on it during day-to-day use. This has made personal data a lot more accessible to people who want it.

On the positive side, this has enabled old friends who may have lost contact to get back in touch. A lot of old school mates, university chums and former colleagues can now find you with a simple search.

The downside is that a lot of people from school who you never wanted to see again (unless the meeting involved a tall tower, a high-powered sniper rifle and a bad Monday), fellow alumni who you were happy to see the back of and ex-staff who made your working day a trial can also get back in contact.

Even worse are the pinnacle of the problem: stalkers. These people use the web to troll for information about their victims, use email to bombard them with messages and generally make their lives a living hell. As more information gets online, their twisted job gets easier.

The legal process is catching up with these people, however. It's now common to ban convicted stalkers from electronic contact with victims. Best of all, the stalkers leave digital footprints which can be used to protect those who suffer from their ministrations.

In the long term privacy rules will curtail the reach of these sick people, but in the meantime it is going to be a rocky road for their victims.

Shaun Nichols: When out at the club or walking through the park, one doesn't usually greet a stranger by rattling off the names of their children, pets, year of graduation and neighbourhood of residence.

That sort of information, however, is fairly easy to find on the web through such things as social networking profiles. For every tool that makes it easier to track down old co-workers and classmates, the ability for dangerous individuals to track their victims also becomes easier.

The most disturbing trend seems to be with teenagers. As just about everyone seems to believe in their own invincibility between the ages of 15 and 24, the idea of handing over very personal information to strangers or casual online friends is given little thought by many kids. This is already leading to some very tragic and frightening stories.

There are some basic protections people can put in place to protect themselves, however. Simple things such as restricting access to a Facebook page or keeping a secondary email address are simple ways to put another barrier of protection between yourself and a potential stalker.

It's still a case of trying to put the genie back into the lamp, however, and the fact remains that it is far easier to stalk someone today than it was 20 years ago.

 
5. Addiction
Iain Thomson: When internet addiction was first mentioned I admit I was something of a sceptic. It seemed like yet another scare story, but time has proved me wrong and we have to accept that some people really are addicted to online life.

In one way it's understandable. If you're a low level burger flipper with no friends and few prospects in the real world, but a 57th level paladin with the respect of your peers and adulation of lesser online mortals on the web, I can see why the internet would be addictive.

Sadly these addictions have a nasty habit of spilling out into the real world. We've already had plenty of cases of murders being committed because of slights carried out online, and I fear such cases will become more and more prevalent. It would be wrong to blame these totally on the web. After all, people carry killing grudges over phone conversations and letters, but the web has increased the possibility of such tragedies occurring.

But there's another side to internet addiction. Anyone who has spent a few hours lost in Wikipedia, for example, knows what I am talking about. So too do people who spend hours each day playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games or too long on Second Life. The web offers many such diversions and we all need to make sure that we do not exclude the offline world for the sake of our social health.

Shaun Nichols: Some people are addictive personalities who are naturally prone to becoming hooked on things. Others have obsessive tendencies that can force them to neglect basic and necessary things in the pursuit of a single goal. The scary thing about the web is that it gives so many different types of people ways to become dangerously engrossed.

As Iain pointed out, in some ways the web can become addictive for its ability to replace reality. However, it can be just as dangerous for its ability to supplement reality. A gambler may only be able to get to the casino a couple weeks out of the year, but an online casino can be accessed 24/7 from the comfort of your own home, without the travel or accommodation costs but with all the same abilities to drain bank accounts.

The privacy is also a danger. One can be an addict and still go to work or school during the day without necessarily tipping themselves off to others. It's an addiction that is far easier to hide than real-life vices.

4. Porn
Iain Thomson: The musical Avenue Q may joke about it in the song The internet is for porn but the reality of pornography on the web is less of a laughing matter.

Before the web, porn was much more strictly regulated and controlled. Access was possible to be sure, but much more difficult than today's world where anybody with a web connection can find the stuff within seconds with no check as to their age or legality.

I don't want to come off sounding like a stuck-up prig about this, but it is a significant worry. Yes, pornography has always, and will always, exist. But the sheer volume of it on the web is concerning, and the content even more so. Gone are the days when an adult would pick up a copy of Playboy from the newsagent (just for the articles, you understand) and see well paid models showing their wares.

Now porn is cheap, increasingly exploitative and increasingly extreme. Paedophiles and other sexual abusers can congregate online and, as we have seen in police cases, are increasingly adept at using the web to meet and exchange content and information. It was always thus using letters and the telephone, but the web has made it much, much easier and the authorities are struggling (and in my opinion failing) to keep up.

Psychologists are also concerned that it is warping people's expectations of what sex is all about. The pornography industry is having a real effect on real-world fashions, as any Brazilian waxer will tell you. This is not health and people need to get a sense of perspective about their partners that is not provided in the world of pornography.

Shaun Nichols: I'd add that the widespread access to porn has in many ways cheapened the value and perception of sex.

Amateur pornography has moved from the realm of the odd exhibitionist couple to become dangerously exploitive in many cases, particularly among young people. One has only to look at the phenomena of 'sexting' among teenagers to get some idea of how perceptions of sex and personal privacy have changed due to the web.

Then there's the criminal element. Searching for and downloading porn is one of the most dangerous activities one can engage in on the web.

Malware writers have made a mint from the 'fake codec' scam in which an eager user is told to download and install a piece of software in hopes of getting to watch a dirty movie. If you want to get your system infected and identity stolen in a hurry, turn off all your anti-virus and firewall software and then run a few search queries for pornography.

Of course, erotica and sexuality have a rightful place in adult society; just about any psychologist will tell you that to deny those urges is to invite madness. But the Wild West climate that accompanied much of the online porn industry has also led to some very dangerous attitudes and operations.

3. Viruses/Malware
Shaun Nichols: 'Entrepreneur' isn't always a term that applies to good guys. While many code jockeys and retailers have been able to make millions of dollars making people's lives easier, just as many malicious individuals have managed to make big bucks by screwing things up.

Prior to the rise of the web, identity theft was a fairly rare criminal occurrence. Now, it's a multi-billion dollar trade. Access to massive archives of personal information can be had for pennies on the dollar.

This has led to the rise in malware. Once considered fairly harmless pranks by hackers, writing and spreading viral computer infections and malicious software tools has become a highly lucrative criminal enterprise.

And it's not only your bank account they're after. Many malware packages take advantage of the web's basic commercial concepts such as affiliate download fees and pay-per-click commissions.

Iain Thomson: I miss the good old days when virus writers did it for the kudos. Maybe locking up the originators of viruses was a bad idea, since it put them in contact with people who saw the commercial potential of malware.

Back in the good old days, when Shaun was just a glint in his father's eye, viruses were easy to block. They spread via corrupted discs that had to be physically swapped. Now, thanks to the web, millions of people can be infected in a morning.

Security companies are trying their utmost to keep a lid on the virus writers but there are too few good people fighting too many of the scum. I think it will take a fundamental redesign of the web to even come close to defeating the problem and we will lose much in the shift.

There's always some person at a party who thinks it's their right to steal others' bags or clothes because they are lying around. There's the person that thinks there's nothing wrong with mugging someone for what they possess because they want it and can't be bothered to work for the prize rather than taking the short cut.

Viruses will be around as long as there is a web, but it doesn't make it any less annoying.

2. Fraud
Iain Thomson: The facility for low cost, convincing communication that is the essence of the web has caused a boom in cases of fraud.

Fraudsters have been around as long as mankind. There were probably Neanderthals bilking each other out of flint tools on the promise of mammoth haunches that failed to materialise back in the dawn of time and there's not much evidence that things have improved since then.

Now, particularly with web email, there is an ideal way for fraudsters to tempt the greedy and credulous. One estimate puts the amount of revenue generated by schemes like 419 scams (the letters offering you a share in a huge sum of money in exchange for a small finders fee) is over a million dollars a week.

With the inclination and the right tools fraudsters can create convincing online personas that are used to fleece hundreds of people at a time. It's a long way from the convincing spiv who would have to traipse around door to door or sending out letters using regular postage. The communication that is such a good feature of the web is being used for nefarious purposes and we are a long way from finding a solution.

Shaun Nichols: Fraud is yet another occurrence that may not have been invented after the web, but it was most certainly given new life by it.

Fraudsters used to be thought of as slick-talking cons. Now they can be anyone from a bored teenager in Canada to a crime syndicate in Eastern Europe or a family trying to make a living in Nigeria.

Again, the problem comes down to anonymity. Just as nobody on the internet knows you're a dog, they also don't know that you're not a Swiss bank executive or a Mastercard account manager. The web has streamlined and democratised fraud, making a sort of perfect storm for criminal activity to flourish.

Security companies and law enforcement groups are making inroads into shutting down some of these operations, but the sad truth is that they remain woefully outmanned and outgunned by the bad guys, and it appears that we are a long way from even slowing the tide of fraud on the web, let alone making progress towards stopping it.

1. Disinformation
Iain Thomson: If information is the best thing about the web, then disinformation has to be the worst. The web has allowed vast amounts of information to be propagated online, but very quickly people realised that it could be used for disinformation as well.

People are trusting souls and used to believe information they found on the web, but now the phrase 'I read it on the internet' has become a term of derision.

The situation has not been helped by services like Wikipedia. While the online encyclopaedia is a good thing, it has also allowed misinformation to spread more quickly and effectively. It has even allowed the creation of alternative information sources which are intentionally biased, such as Wikipedia rip-off Conservapedia.

Sometimes I fear for where this is leading us. With lies and half-truths so prevalent on the web, people can find sources that appear to back up almost any crazy notion, and sub-industries have grown up to supply them. Bloggers mobilise to spread disinformation and memes to advance their causes, phony web sites support quack medical cures that will not deliver and businesses subvert online review sites to make themselves look better.

My hope is that people will react against this by becoming more critical of what they read online. Not dismissing material out of hand, but analysing its source, corroborating data and then making a rational decision based on that research.

A technical fix for the problem would be very difficult, if not impossible to achieve. Instead we will all have to become a lot more web-savvy and take responsibility for the data we consume.

Shaun Nichols: If there's one constant in the history of mankind, it's that every new discovery brings a potential for danger roughly equal to its potential for usefulness. For every area in which the web has made life easier, it has also added a way in which life can be ruined.

Just as the wealth of information created by the web has given humanity unprecedented access to knowledge and the ability to collaborate and organise, so it has provided the tools for mankind to inflict great damage upon itself.

If knowledge is power, then the web is the most potent source of power this planet has seen in centuries. A successful web site has the ability to reach millions of people each day. As terrorist groups have demonstrated in recent years, the web is a useful way to collaborate, but also a frighteningly effective way to recruit and manipulate new followers to a destructive cause.

As Iain pointed out, there is no easy or readily apparent solution to this problem. We are really only beginning to realise the potential of the web, and as we continue to develop and mature online, it is almost certain that new and even more menacing dangers will emerge. Certainly this is something to consider and be wary of as we move forward into Web 3.0 and beyond.