Local ePolitics Reputation Case Study

Abstract: More and more people rely on Web information and with the advance of Web 2.0 technologies they can increasingly easily participate to the creation of this information. Country-level politicians could not ignore this trend and have started to use the Web to promote them or to demote their opponents. This paper presents how candidates to a French mayor local election and with less budget have engineered their Web campaign and online reputation. After presenting the settings of the local election, the Web tools used by the different candidates and the local journalists are detailed. These tools are evaluated from a security point of view and the legal issues that they have created are underlined.