This new generation of monitors goes beyond news publishers and instead trolls for rumor and innuendo in the Net's virtual back alleys - in thousands of chat rooms and discussion forums where, Ewatch executives say, unchecked scuttlebutt can damage corporate reputations and stock prices. But bad news for corporate America meant good public relations for Ewatch. The company's sales dipped, Alexander said, and Ewatch was hired to help Mrs. Fields find online discussion groups where the rumor had appeared and then post corrective messages. Cookie sales soon returned to normal levels, Alexander said. Since then, as cyberspace has grown, so have Ewatch's methods.
Humans ultimately screen the results and winnow out the chaff before reports are sent to clients.
Each day, Ewatch combs through more than 250,000 postings from the sprawling online discussion forum known as Usenet. Among the handful of competitors offering monitoring services are Cybercheck, a Denver company that says it can search for key words in 150,000 online sources, and Cyveillance, an Alexandria, Va., company that scans the bit stream for rumors, trademark infringements and e-commerce developments that might affect its corporate clients. Ewatch serves about 130 clients full time, including U S West, H.J. Heinz, Owens Corning and Northwest Airlines. It is no longer independent, having been acquired by Wavephore Inc., a publicly held data broadcasting company based in Phoenix. As more companies come to recognize the perils of the electronic grapevine, Ewatch and other monitoring agents are finding that their real competitors are often their would-be clients.