Communication at a distance

How do you trust communication at a distance? How do you ensure co-operation when the other party can cancel all future interaction? It has never been easier to walk away from obligations, to fail to return phone calls, to communicate only through anonymous email addresses and then not communicate at all. So what do you do when the other party does not fulfill their part of the agreement? Perhaps the blog becomes the social conscience of us all, with search engines noting the names of miscreants and liars ... except that this, too, becomes open to abuse, with individual reputations easily targeted by people eager to cause mischief for financial gain or childish expressions of ego.

The new model of social interaction is opening up new opportunities for bad behaviours.