We last looked at internet coverage of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) only four weeks ago (http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7395/937/a). But since then readers have brought a number of other sites to our attention. With such a fast developing and ever changing subject as the SARS outbreak, the explosion of new sites is not surprising. This is one of the fundamental strengths of the internet, along with highly visible, fast updates, which are unattainable by the print media. But in the case of something like complex health information, the internet also has its weaknesses. One of these is the lack of “editorial” information about the sites that we surf.
Many of the sites on SARS that readers recommended look (and are) very good. It is another strength of the internet that it is not restricted to professional media people or international associations like the World Health Organization. Anybody can put up information. It might as well be you or me. Consequently there is an abundance of private pages about SARS and many of them offer a good selection of information and hyperlinks. However, only a few of them are explicit about the people or organisations behind them (whereas if you go to http://bmj.com/aboutsite you will soon know everything about us).
Sites such as www.sarsnewswire.com or www.urbaniSARS.com are very slick—they look great and contain a lot of useful and well selected information and resources about SARS. However, neither site tells us anything about the people who run them, why they produce them, and, no less important, where in the world they do so.
Another pitfall, especially for the uninitiated, is the false security of posh domain names. Rare visitors to the internet, perhaps driven by fear of SARS, might go for www.sars.com, a presumably reasonable choice. They will, however, find tabloid style information, funny or rather scary pictures, and definitely no information whatsoever of how, where, or why this important piece of human knowledge was created. And, most importantly, we do not learn who created it. I wonder why.