Apple Caught Modifying Wikipedia Entries

Wikipedia is well known for not being an overly reliable source of information as anyone can edit entries. Despite not receiving the blessings of academic circles, Wikipedia remains one of the fast and easiest ways to get information on any given subject, which is probably why so many people use it.

Despite it not being the most accurate source of information, many Wiki contributors do everything they can to ensure that the information is up to date, accurate and unbiased. Unfortunately, not everyone falls in the aforementioned category and some contributors have other agendas. Such seems to be the case of employees or representatives of several high profile companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Dell, who have been altering Wikipedia entries for their companies. In some cases, truthful but pejorative information was removed or altered, while in other cases negative entries about competing firms were added.

This practice was documented by Virgil Griffith who created a program called 'Wikipedia Scanner,' which reveals who edits Wikipedia articles by scanning the IP address, and cross-references it with a geographical database. Using the program, Griffith caught Microsoft trying to cover up the Xbox 360 failure rate; Apple editing Microsoft entries, adding more negative comments about its rival, and vice versa; Dell deleting negative comments on customer services and removing a passage how the company outsources work to third world countries.

Griffith clearly admits to having created the tool in order to "create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike." While it is impossible to prove that the modification were made by someone actually working for the company, the IP clearly proves that it was someone that had access to the company's network. Although this is not exactly news, as this sort of thing takes place each and every day, it is quite shocking that such high profile companies would be out doing this, and even worse, modifying the pages of their rivals.