I Am Not Internet Service Provider! - A Look at Trust on the Web

I never thought I would have to give such a weird disclaimer but recently I have been getting way too many emails like this:

On 2/27/08, Chandrakant Gajjar wrote:

Please refer my complain No:4707124 as my internet connection installation was done two months later.so kindly grant my request in time&inform me.
Thanks,
C. H. GAJJAR

Please refer my mail given to you on:27/02/2008.regarding validity extention of my connection.please grant my request and REPLY..
Thanks,
C.H.GAJJAR.

Writing about BSNL / VSNL doesn’t make me an ISP. It is amazing to see how many people miss such a simple fact. And such cases are not isolated to internet service providers only. In my stem cell blog we get lots of email asking for advice on conditions amenable to stem cell treatment. In some cases they assume that I am the doctor or researcher I wrote about.

The key issue here is trust on the web. The non-internet generation has been conditioned to accept written word (such as from books and newspapers) as representing truth. They often transfer such similar trust to web documents too. Unfortunately anyone, in the web, can write about anything and his document is equally visible as authentic news or information sources. Web doesn’t have a well-defined standard for authenticity. The only standard is that imposed by Google. In other words, if Google’s algorithm deems a document as important then it will reach a larger audience, even if it is fake or untrustworthy. Maybe it is time that we need a better indicator of trust on the web.