Americablog first received widespread media attention after it revealed that Jeff Gannon, a member of the White House press corps with a reputation for asking "softball" questions at opportune moments for Press Secretary Scott McClellan, was actually James Guckert and had advertised his services as an escort. In 2006, Aravosis learned that a number of commercial websites were selling people's private cell phone records, and that the practice was legal. In order to publicize what he considered a problem, Aravosis purchased the call records of former presidential candidate and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO General Wesley Clark for $89.95, and then published the records (with the numbers blacked out) on Americablog, bringing the issue widespread attention. In September 2006, California passed a state law banning the practice of pretexting, or pretending to be someone else, used by the websites, with the bill's sponsor specifically citing the Americablog coverage. Clark became an advocate of cell record privacy bills in Congress. Within months, Congress passed a law restricting these records. More information...
According to PR-model, americablog.com is ranked 270,383rd in multilingual Wikipedia, in particular this website is ranked 170,655th in English Wikipedia.
The website is placed before tastebetter.com and after universitaskebangsaan.ac.id in the BestRef global ranking of the most important sources of Wikipedia.
