The next time someone posts a naked photo of you online, don’t get even — get a hold of a reputation management company who can delete the photo. Or push good stuff about you to the top of Google. But do these companies cross an ethical boundary?
Digital Journal — He was a scorned lover with a mission: discredit his ex-girlfriend with online posts on discussion forums. He posted salacious info about her sex life and filled comment boxes with her mailing address. But within several days, a start-up company found the damaging info, persuaded the ex-boyfriend to take down the posts and, in some cases, talked with website administrators to pull the comments. The worried ex-girlfriend was saved, thanks to the paid service provided by ReputationDefender.
Doing what its name suggest, ReputationDefender tracks what people say about you by searching deep into various sites like MySpace, Facebook and Livejournal. For a fee, they send you a monthly update of who’s saying what and, for an additional payment, ReputationDefender will contact websites to have posts deleted that are potentially damaging to your, well, reputation.
This 10-month-old start-up is part of a growing business segment specializing in online identity management. Because the Web has given rise to the spread of blog posts and websites where people can badmouth anyone, online identities can be manipulated easily. A Google search of an individual can find top results that may include negative comments that are either slanderous or just plain mean-spirited.
Which is where rep management companies come in. While not all of them delete info they find, most of them can report what’s being said and by whom. If you sign up to ReputationDefender and pay the $10 monthly fee for a service called MyReputation, you receive reports on comments said about you. For an extra $30 per item, you can ask the company to destroy something you don’t like. How does ReputationDefender do this? As the company site claims:Our trained and expert online reputation advocates use an array of proprietary techniques developed in-house to correct and/or completely remove the selected unwanted content from the web.
When ReputationDefender wants to destroy malicious statements, it first starts by asking politely. “We send emails or letters or sometimes make phone calls to the person running the site or forum,” says Michael Fertik, founder of Kentucky-based ReputationDefender, in an interview with Digital Journal. “Most bloggers have been responsive, but sometimes we may have to go over their head by contacting the Internet service provider or Web admin.”
So now embarrassing blog entries can be deleted, for a price? And ISPs can get all Big Brother on us by complying with a company’s request? In fact, Fertik says the MyReputation service is often used primarily to receive reports on the client’s presence on the Web. It sounds like vanity reigns supreme for those of us who aren’t satisfied with simple Google searches of our names.
And when we Google ourselves, what’s floating to the top page? If it’s a site full of negative comments, that can also be pushed further down the results page using services like Naymz. Based in Chicago, this company can polish your online reputation by buying a sponsored-link ad on search engines like Google that link directly a profile you create on Naymz.
If I joined Naymz and opted for the free basic service, I could write a profile on myself like I would on a site like MySpace, linking to online info I approve. Naymz then promotes that profile through a bought sponsored-link on Google. These links supersede the “natural” results Google normally lists. And that’s not all: specific information on yourself will rise to the top of Google rankings using Naymz’s proprietary search-engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
“We know what Google likes and doesn’t like,” says co-founder Nolan Bayliss in an interview. “We do everything in our power to place the Naymz profile at the highest spot possible, much like what companies do using SEO methods.”
A quick test proves Naymz’s efficacy. I search for one of their members, a marketing executive for Universal Music Group named Randy Dry. A Google search of his name revealed a LinkedIn profile as the top result, with the Naymz profile coming in at number two. On the right side, the lone sponsored link displays the Naymz profile once more.
“We dominate Google search results,” Bayliss says, adding how the Premium $5-per-month service can promote your info to other search engines such as MSN and Yahoo while also deleting any ads on the custom Naymz profile.
Bayliss says Naymz is ideal for Netizens concerned with what info rises to the top of Google searches, whether they’re looking for jobs or dealing with a messy divorce or facing a malicious blogger. “Our clients don’t have a public relations staff and they’re not big enough to be on Wikipedia,” Bayliss says. “This gives users a feeling of empowerment over what is being said about them online.”
But isn’t this gaming Google, in one way? Bayliss defends Naymz practices, mentioning how SEO techniques are used by savvy businesses in order to rank higher on Google results pages. In fact, in an interview with Google spokeswoman Katie Watson, Digital Journal learns why the largest search engine in the world isn’t concerned with what companies like Naymz are doing.
“There’s no problem in creating positive content to combat negative content if done within the [webmaster] guidelines,” said Watson. “If you can write content, or have content written, about yourself and have it be interesting and compelling so that people link to it, it may indeed be relevant for searches on your name or business and may be a valid search result, above the negative content.”
Fertik offers a warning to anyone who thinks Google will promote the most truthful facts to the top. “Some results are total crap, some are totally salacious,” he said. “We can’t assume a search engine’s natural results are only the best.”
But should people trust sites like Naymz and ReputationDefender? Some concerns arise from the growth of online identification tools. First, in the wrong hands, they can be used to scrub info from the Web about a shady past. For instance, a pedophile recently released from prison may want to delete any info about his past, although Fertik contends it’s “pretty black-and-white who’s a scumbag and who’s not.” Maybe so, but intelligent criminals can find ways to fool even the most thorough execs.
Second, don’t we want to find the most information about an individual we look for on Google? If the engine is being manipulated into displaying search results that are favourable to that person, the results can be misleading. Appealing to Google’s algorithms is nothing new, of course, but now that those SEO techniques are being applied to anyone (as opposed to large corporations), what is stopping search engines from becoming glorified press releases? It’s well-known that the top Google result is often the most popular page, as opposed to the most honest, but shouldn’t searchers make judgment calls for themselves?
No matter how you regard the ethical motives behind these rep management services, the implication of this new market segment is explosive. Online privacy will always be on the minds of anyone using sites like Facebook or Livejournal, especially when identity thieves continue to prowl the Web for unsuspecting victims. People will pay companies to correct false statements about themselves, so this start-up segment is bound to reach higher ground in the coming years.
Back in the day, we would keep our rep golden by steering clear of trouble. Now, you can pay someone to make sure those troublesome days will no longer resurface on the casual Web search.
