Posted: 10:51 PM - Feb 07, 2006
By Lee Davidson
Deseret Morning News
Genealogists beware.
A software company is marketing a new program to Internet advertisers that
could quickly generate Web sites full of extensive, but fake, family trees.
Critics say the approach appears to be part of a new money-making scheme to
lure people who search for family names on Google, Yahoo or other search
engines to Web sites that use bogus data to help ensure they appear high on
"hit lists." They then make money if visitors click on advertisers' links.
They worry that novices might download false information that is designed to
look real, and then corrupt others' family trees if they share that bad data
online or through family history databases such as those offered by The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the commercial Utah-based
Ancestry.com
However, Don Harrold, co-creator of a program called "Fake Family," which he
sells for $75, says data it produces has "absolutely zero chance" of
matching any real person or family. He says he has offered the program to
fewer than 30 self-described Internet advertisers, so its use is not
widespread, and he has not made money on it.
Why make it then? "Why not? I enjoy trying to find ways to create computer
simulations of organic life," Harrold told the Deseret Morning News.
But online chat groups of both genealogists and Internet advertisers are
buzzing about what the new program could do to genealogical research, and
why Harrold is marketing it, even if, as he says, to a small group.
Dan Eastman, author of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, wrote this
past week that he believes Harrold "wants to flood the Internet with bogus
genealogy material, all for the purpose of making easy money."
Online information that Harrold wrote says his product can "create thousands
of pages of unique . . . content with almost no effort. Neither humans nor
search engines will be able to tell whether the content is 'real' or
'generated.' "
How could that make money?
Josh Anderson, an Internet advertiser from Idaho, who also is a genealogist
concerned about the product, explains Web hosts can program their sites to
display "sponsored links." Advertisers pay search engines to have these
appear on screen whenever certain key words such as "genealogy" are part of
a search.
When such links are clicked by a visitor, the Web site host and search
engine company split revenue from an advertiser. (Of course, Web sites can
also offer other forms of advertising.)
"It can be a very profitable source of income. Some people make millions of
dollars a year doing it," Anderson said. "The whole purpose (of Fake
Family-style sites) is to trick the search engine, so they get a top listing
for some search words" to attract more visitors and potentially more
revenue-producing mouse clicks.
Search engine companies say they hunt for and remove from listings any sites
that are bogus or that scrape content from other sites merely to act as a
vehicle to carry advertiser links.
But Fake Family boasts in written information that it can fool search
engines. It does not merely produce lists of random names, but links them
generation-to-generation with bogus birth, marriage and death dates and
places.
It adds that its randomly generated names "are era-specific," meaning you
will get more names such as Orville and Bertha in the 1880s than the 1980s.
Infant mortality, marriage rates and migration data is also encoded, and
more. It's the rich family "experience" that Fake Family provides that is
significant and makes the output stunning in its ability to look real to
humans.
Internet advertisers helped the Deseret Morning News identify a few
genealogy sites that appeared to contain only bogus information, along with
plenty of advertiser links. Harrold, however, said he only knows of one
generated by Fake Family (even though he said in written information that he
has "monetized" several family history sites).
"This is scary to me," said Mindy Koch, an Internet advertiser from North
Carolina and an avid genealogist. "There is a great chance that a novice
could think this is real. If they download it, and then later upload it into
repositories like (the LDS Church's) Ancestral File, those databases would
include lots of people who never existed."
Also, she added that it potentially could make search engines more difficult
to use for genealogy if bogus sites slow them or account for all the "top
hits."
Harrold says such threats are imagined and not real. He said the chances of
randomly selected first and last names, coupled with randomly selected
places and dates, being shown as married to the same persons as people who
actually lived "are not just slim, they are nonexistent."
He said if someone still mistook such information as real and downloaded it,
"that's their fault." He adds, "If you want real family information, why are
you not looking at Census records? If you're not paying for it, and I didn't
ask you to take it, and the name and date don't match your family tree, why
are you taking this information? Any onus is on the people who take this
information."
Some in genealogy chat groups, however, complained that a name that looks
even roughly plausible could be mistaken as real by a novice, or cause even
a genealogy expert to spend a lot of time and money to eliminate the
possibility it is the person for whom they are seeking.
"Boo hoo," Harrold told the Morning News in response to such complaints. He
said "the real story" is how Google and other search engines do not verify
content they seek and guide others to for profit. He said databases by the
LDS Church and Ancestry.com also contain some incorrect information
submitted by patrons. His obviously false data creates less threat to
genealogy research than they do, he said.
Harrold suggested in chat groups that he might sue people who referred to
his work as a "scam." He also warned the Morning News to be careful what it
said about him.
In turn, makers of the Legacy Family Tree software threatened to sue Harrold
if he did not remove from his Web site instructions about how to download
free software from them that could assist the Fake Family program.
Meanwhile, Mary Kay Evans, spokeswoman for Ancestry.com, a Utah company
that, as part of its service, offers a large database of names, said, "It is
so unfortunate that there are predators on the Web who target people
interested in their genealogy. Genealogy is such a popular hobby that
predators are moving to take advantage of that."
Evans, as well as many genealogists and even Harrold himself, urges
genealogists to verify carefully all sources of information in genealogy,
especially any obtained online from people they do not know. "That is a
primary role of Ancestry.com, to help people see source records," Evans
said.
Anderson, who operates a small family Web site, also encourages genealogists
to actually talk to people operating such sites and ask for all source
information.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160683,00.html
Deseret Morning News
Genealogists beware.
A software company is marketing a new program to Internet advertisers that
could quickly generate Web sites full of extensive, but fake, family trees.
Critics say the approach appears to be part of a new money-making scheme to
lure people who search for family names on Google, Yahoo or other search
engines to Web sites that use bogus data to help ensure they appear high on
"hit lists." They then make money if visitors click on advertisers' links.
They worry that novices might download false information that is designed to
look real, and then corrupt others' family trees if they share that bad data
online or through family history databases such as those offered by The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the commercial Utah-based
Ancestry.com
However, Don Harrold, co-creator of a program called "Fake Family," which he
sells for $75, says data it produces has "absolutely zero chance" of
matching any real person or family. He says he has offered the program to
fewer than 30 self-described Internet advertisers, so its use is not
widespread, and he has not made money on it.
Why make it then? "Why not? I enjoy trying to find ways to create computer
simulations of organic life," Harrold told the Deseret Morning News.
But online chat groups of both genealogists and Internet advertisers are
buzzing about what the new program could do to genealogical research, and
why Harrold is marketing it, even if, as he says, to a small group.
Dan Eastman, author of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, wrote this
past week that he believes Harrold "wants to flood the Internet with bogus
genealogy material, all for the purpose of making easy money."
Online information that Harrold wrote says his product can "create thousands
of pages of unique . . . content with almost no effort. Neither humans nor
search engines will be able to tell whether the content is 'real' or
'generated.' "
How could that make money?
Josh Anderson, an Internet advertiser from Idaho, who also is a genealogist
concerned about the product, explains Web hosts can program their sites to
display "sponsored links." Advertisers pay search engines to have these
appear on screen whenever certain key words such as "genealogy" are part of
a search.
When such links are clicked by a visitor, the Web site host and search
engine company split revenue from an advertiser. (Of course, Web sites can
also offer other forms of advertising.)
"It can be a very profitable source of income. Some people make millions of
dollars a year doing it," Anderson said. "The whole purpose (of Fake
Family-style sites) is to trick the search engine, so they get a top listing
for some search words" to attract more visitors and potentially more
revenue-producing mouse clicks.
Search engine companies say they hunt for and remove from listings any sites
that are bogus or that scrape content from other sites merely to act as a
vehicle to carry advertiser links.
But Fake Family boasts in written information that it can fool search
engines. It does not merely produce lists of random names, but links them
generation-to-generation with bogus birth, marriage and death dates and
places.
It adds that its randomly generated names "are era-specific," meaning you
will get more names such as Orville and Bertha in the 1880s than the 1980s.
Infant mortality, marriage rates and migration data is also encoded, and
more. It's the rich family "experience" that Fake Family provides that is
significant and makes the output stunning in its ability to look real to
humans.
Internet advertisers helped the Deseret Morning News identify a few
genealogy sites that appeared to contain only bogus information, along with
plenty of advertiser links. Harrold, however, said he only knows of one
generated by Fake Family (even though he said in written information that he
has "monetized" several family history sites).
"This is scary to me," said Mindy Koch, an Internet advertiser from North
Carolina and an avid genealogist. "There is a great chance that a novice
could think this is real. If they download it, and then later upload it into
repositories like (the LDS Church's) Ancestral File, those databases would
include lots of people who never existed."
Also, she added that it potentially could make search engines more difficult
to use for genealogy if bogus sites slow them or account for all the "top
hits."
Harrold says such threats are imagined and not real. He said the chances of
randomly selected first and last names, coupled with randomly selected
places and dates, being shown as married to the same persons as people who
actually lived "are not just slim, they are nonexistent."
He said if someone still mistook such information as real and downloaded it,
"that's their fault." He adds, "If you want real family information, why are
you not looking at Census records? If you're not paying for it, and I didn't
ask you to take it, and the name and date don't match your family tree, why
are you taking this information? Any onus is on the people who take this
information."
Some in genealogy chat groups, however, complained that a name that looks
even roughly plausible could be mistaken as real by a novice, or cause even
a genealogy expert to spend a lot of time and money to eliminate the
possibility it is the person for whom they are seeking.
"Boo hoo," Harrold told the Morning News in response to such complaints. He
said "the real story" is how Google and other search engines do not verify
content they seek and guide others to for profit. He said databases by the
LDS Church and Ancestry.com also contain some incorrect information
submitted by patrons. His obviously false data creates less threat to
genealogy research than they do, he said.
Harrold suggested in chat groups that he might sue people who referred to
his work as a "scam." He also warned the Morning News to be careful what it
said about him.
In turn, makers of the Legacy Family Tree software threatened to sue Harrold
if he did not remove from his Web site instructions about how to download
free software from them that could assist the Fake Family program.
Meanwhile, Mary Kay Evans, spokeswoman for Ancestry.com, a Utah company
that, as part of its service, offers a large database of names, said, "It is
so unfortunate that there are predators on the Web who target people
interested in their genealogy. Genealogy is such a popular hobby that
predators are moving to take advantage of that."
Evans, as well as many genealogists and even Harrold himself, urges
genealogists to verify carefully all sources of information in genealogy,
especially any obtained online from people they do not know. "That is a
primary role of Ancestry.com, to help people see source records," Evans
said.
Anderson, who operates a small family Web site, also encourages genealogists
to actually talk to people operating such sites and ask for all source
information.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160683,00.html