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Online Reputation Management To Keep Your Nose Clean?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Feb 01, 2008 01:07 PM
from the if-you-don't-want-it-printed-don't-do-it dept.
from the if-you-don't-want-it-printed-don't-do-it dept.
Techdirt is reporting that as a response to all the hoopla about people being able to Google for information on potential employees (or lovers) a new market has opened up in "online reputation management". This seems to be the ultimate realization of those dubious firms who promised to scrub your records clean from a few years back. "From the description in the article, it sounds like this involves a combination of search engine optimization, plus legal bullying of anyone who says something you don't like. If anything, that sounds like a recipe for more trouble, but you can see how it would appeal to those who are unhappy with how they're perceived online. Obviously, it's no fun to have something bad about you exposed online, but efforts to suppress that information have a decent likelihood of backfiring and serving to highlight that information. I wonder if these online reputation managers have malpractice insurance for when that happens?"
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Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Funny)
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My real name is almost that common. Good luck trying to find any signal amongst the massive amount of noise a search generates.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, I guess I could find it mildly troubling that even after almost 20 years online, it's still difficult to find me by name on a Google search. Sex offender registries maybe, but then...I've said too much.
Parent
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most people back then did pretty much the same. It just seems common sense doesn't it? When did people start really acting stupid AND not only documenting it and publishing it for eternity? Do people not have the common sense to know that actions can follow you over time?
I mean, sure, I know there are pictures and all back when I partied my ass off....and passed out here or there, etc. But, I doubt they're ever gonna surface unless I run for Senator or something. But, even so, I knew better than to broadcast that stuff back then. It all makes for great drinking stories, and all, but, c'mon, don't people have some idea that they will try to have a future out there?
Hell, I've had to learn that I have to actually tone down my stories of old escapades depending on company. When at work at times in the past, when hanging with the guys, shooting the shit...each telling stories and trying to kinda of top the other....I noticed that my idea of normal partying was WAY more than most of them. I learned then not to really tell new people about the old exploits...at least not at work.
I basically have fun rehashing them with old friends I did them with....but, shy of that, in this world, well, it is more and more important to not be seen!! [wikipedia.org]
Parent
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went by what they represented was their real name. Infact, these types tended
to look down on the rest of us that weren't buying into that idea.
Sounds like we psuedononymous types had the last laugh.
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What's important is that the victims were not participating in the forum be
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They did. The hosting site claimed that they were immune under CDA 230 [wikipedia.org] and refused.
sued for Libel and possibly other things
There is a lawsuit pending, but the plaintiffs can't find any of the people who made the libels. The hosting site deleted or didn't keep IP logs, claiming that they didn't have to. And the hosting site claims that it's immune under CDA
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Sounds like it's an issue with a loophole in CDA 230. After reading it over I notice CDA 230 has exemptions for federal crimes, and copyright infringement. Sounds like the problem could be solved by adding another exemption for Libel such that the ISP must take down libelous statements when ordered to do so by the court otherwise their held responsible for them, much the same as the other exceptions.
The trouble with that is that at the moment genuine whistleblowers have some potential protection from identification. Take it away and bullies will find it all the easier to silence criticism -- all they have to do is call the accusations libel then they can go after the whistleblower with their own threats of violence. I've been in that position -- my wife was blowing the whistle on malpractice in a geriatric care home, and we got threats of violence against our (then) infant children (on police advice s
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It's not your myspace, it's your friends (Score:3, Interesting)
Or if some Anonymous Coward just lies completely and claims that a photo is of you (when it really isn't) just to be a jerk. If they post it through TOR then they can never be found. And a site like Encyclopedia Dramatica would never take it down. ED will claim that they're immune from liabi
Re:It's not your myspace, it's your friends (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess sadly, these days, more than in mine, it is best to try to choose your "friends" more wisely, and also, you have to be more careful who you're around when you cut loose and get a little wild. No, in my day, you didn't have to worry about cameras everywhere...the cellphone type makes it dangerous to do anything these days....but, people still brought film cameras to parties. I still have tons of those pics in albums. But, in light of todays easy click-shoot-publish, I guess you have to be more careful about when and where you let your hair down so to speak.
It is sad in that respect, and I know from being a kid, things like that aren't the primary thing you keep in mind most of the time (if at all).
I guess these days, it is best if you learn a lesson that we used to get later in life...you have to be suspicious and wary of most people...at least till you get to know them for awhile. Be careful who you do things around.
Parent
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For most all of my 'internet life'...starting back about '93-'94 or so, I pretty much always used pseudonyms, and rarely if ever gave out personal information.
Same here but since blogs became popular and I got mentioned once or twice here and there I decided that if it's gonna be the first result with my name on google it might as well be something better. So, now I do post a lot of stuff with my own name in it.
Disclaimer: My company has asked me to research the ORM market. I might be biased.
In fact, I am beginning to think that this stuff is a much better response than litigation a lot of time and given the nature of the web, litigation is a lot of tim
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That's an internet myth. There was a British fellow named Niel Harriot (although his real name may have been Janet) who ran a site called Yello There, a parody of Blue's News. I ran a site called the Springfield Fragfest, and we were fans of each others' sites (I found out after posting something silly about his site).
He suffered from a terminal disease and I lost track of him, I don't think (s?)he breathes any more. The only reference I can find of Niel or his site is one page of
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It will really backfire... (Score:2)
Not for everyone (Score:5, Funny)
Customer: Hi, I'd like a clean online reputation, can you do that?
Company: Sure, just a couple of clicks, 100 bucks and you're clean... What's your name?
Customer: Kevin Mitnick.
Company:
Company:
Company: -_-'
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(If anyone out there wanted to hire me for that service, I'd be more'n willing for a very reasonable rate...
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Don't even bother reading (Score:3, Informative)
Non-crappy-blog link (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, the real article is at
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080130/technology/lifestyle_us_internet_technology_rights [yahoo.com]
and says
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A new breed of image-manager is emerging in the United States to take on the masked and hooded cybermobs who, bolstered by anonymity and weak laws, launch damaging attacks on other web users.
"We are seeing online mobs emerge and launch attacks... with significant consequences, both to the people online and to their reputation offline," University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron told AFP.
The anonymity afforded by the Internet "gives people a kind of strength to be much harsher than they would be in person," Georgetown University sociology professor, and co-founder of International Reputation Management (IRM) Christine Schiwietz said.
Reputation managers step in where the law has failed, to provide "digital botox" to names in need of repair, as Schiwietz put it.
A group of women law students at prestigious Yale University who were attacked online, in what has come to be known as the Auto-Admit scandal, have taken on the services of reputation management group, Reputation Defender.
"Auto-Admit was ostensibly a site for getting advice about going to law school, but it degenerated into attacks on named women who were accused of having herpes, having abortions. They got rape threats, death threats," said Citron.
In a posting made last year, and which remains on the web and AFP was able to see, one of the students was called a whore and had lewd references made to her anatomy by numerous assailants who hid behind bogus pseudonyms such as Marty Lipton King Jr.
Anonymity and strength in numbers are fueling the online attacks.
"Five years ago, you had to create a website to get information on the Internet. That site could be traced to an IP address and there was some accountability," Nino Kader of IRM said.
"But Google owns blogs created on blogger.com. So there is a lack of accountability and that is one reason why people are getting pretty malicious out there," he said.
Citron likened vicious cyber-mobs to the mob mentality of the Ku Klux Klan.
"If you're in a crowd where people hold the same negative view as you, and you feel anonymous, you're going to do things you would never dream of doing if you had no mask and hood on," Citron said.
Reputation Defender is paying for a lawsuit filed by the women in the Auto-Admit case against their attackers, but up to now, victims of cyber-thuggery have had little redress in the courts.
"The law doesn't allow victims to sue the site operators because they aren't writing this stuff," said Citron.
"The difficulty in moving against the poster is that they often write under a pseudonym, are often not required to register with a site before posting, or use anonymizing technology. They are totally masked," she added.
Step in the reputation managers: they not only react to online maligning, as Reputation Defenders did in the Auto-Admit case, but also tout proactivity as the best tool to protect clients from online character assassination.
"It's more and more important to know what's out there about you," IRM's Kader said.
IRM concentrates on how clients appear in a Google search because "unless you are a hermit, you will be googled," Schiwietz said.
"There are around 10,000 Google searches made each second, and googling is expected to double or triple because you will be able to do a search anywhere with a handheld device," Kader said.
"I've been at meetings where people have googled the person opposite them," he added.
One method used by IRM to buff someone's Internet legacy is to get the good news about them as high up in Go
Stupid is as Stupid does (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I don't care what someone does in their private life, but if they don't understand the line between private and public I probably don't want them working for me. Really people, is it that hard to use a pseudonym and a hotmail address?
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Potential employers want to know that you can exercize good judgement.
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But what about things that aren't good or bad judgment, but just controversial. If I worked for a very conservative company, they might be concerned if they saw my pictures at the next Pride Parade in Greenwich Village. It's perfectly "good judgment" to support gay rights (I think it's even a duty), but I want to keep my private life separate from my work life. I'm careful to not post photos of myself attached to my real name, but I ca
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Re:Stupid is as Stupid does (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't embarrass yourself in public.
I was at a talk that a Pro Football player was giving to some kids about making good choices. BTW this guy wasn't doing court ordered community service and never has.
He told the kids that the teams have a bunch of experts that try and help the player not do stupid things. This expert was a gun expert. He listed all the times where it would be a bad time to carry your gun. One of the players asked, "Whe is a good time to carry your gun?" The expert said, "If you are going into any situation where having a gun is a good idea not going into that situation to start with is a better idea."
So if you don't want pictures of you at a party with drunk transvestites then don't go to a party with drunk transvestites.
Even a "private" party is a public place.
Parent
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I wonder if I can use that excuse to avoid deploying with my Guard unit to the sandbox next rotation?
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The other side of the coin is even here on slashdot.
At the bottom of the page it says:
"All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2008 SourceForge, Inc."
The part about "Comments are owned by the Poster." is interesting since if the poster later wants the comment removed it puts forums in a difficult place. Either they remove it, at the request of the owner since they own it or if they refuse then the
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1) Someone else posts the material of you on their website where people can find it (your buddy posts a video on youtube, entitled [your_name] drunk with transvestites )
2) Someone else with your name posts material about themselves, but people confuse him with you.
There can be legitimate problems with this sort of thing.
"Young People" (Score:2)
For example, a young idealistic student might post a comment at a site like NoJailForPot.com [nojailforpot.com], and later think twice about it when applying for work after college at, say, a government agency or perhaps an investment house...
Yeah, but I'd like to erase my own idiot-ness (Score:2, Funny)
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.protocols.nfs/browse_thread/thread/76662c9239a05257 [google.ca]
Who can I talk to in order to erase the fact that I wanted to connect MSDOS and UNIX somehow.
Imagine! Wanting to connect two different operating systems together over Ethernet... how silly.
Doesn't look too bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Does having a common name help protect privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, if you google my name, esp. my full name, without quotes, most of the results are porn..... I just happen to have the same last name as the stage name of a famous porn actress who frequently appears with a man whose stage first and last name is the same as my first and middle name respectively.
LOL, so you mean... (Score:2)
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Googling with my full name in quotes will yield me - sadly most of the results will be flamewars from usenet-archiving websites, compounded with helpful and polite participation in tomcat support mailing lists. People googling me will think I'm a jekyll/hyde schizo
How to Manage Your Reputation in One Easy Step: (Score:2, Funny)
Stay the hell away from tequila.
Mod me redundant (Score:2)
Anyone who's ever managed a database of any size at all knows that a name is an incredibly bad identifier. Especially a name like scuttlemonkey or FuzzyDaddy. There were six people on the internet in 1997 with my name, one of whom is a semi-famous comedian who's been on Comedy central.
I'm not him. Im not
Yes but.. (Score:2)
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Extortion works (Score:2)
"Oh I never use my real name on the Internet" goes only so far - these aren't things you are posting about yourself, these are things other people are saying about you. Can they be connected to you? Depends on how detailed the person commenting on you wants to be.
Are we ready for having our children 15 years from now ask why
OR you could do it the easy way (Score:2)
2. Try not to be a Dick even when you disagree with someone.
3. Get your own presence on the web.
4. Use Google Alerts.
If you don't want someone to see it, don't post it, is it that hard?
I blame alcohol. Go ahead Google me. Have at it.
Use a Pseudonym (Score:2)
(Hint: my name isn't corsec67)
If I don't want someone to find out the name I go by for most of my online stuff, I just don't give them my username.
Doing a google search for my real name comes up with my thesis and a patent, both of which are me, and not a whole lot else.
Clean nose? (Score:2)
Try Asking, Nicely (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in '99 I wrote an article [davehitt.com] about someone who threatened lawsuits against people who had posted his poem. Last summer I got an e-mail from him
I thought about it a bit, and, rather than remove the article, removed his name from it. It took about a month for Google to forget, but now when you search on his name the article is nowhere to be found.
If he had demanded that it be taken down, I would have laughed and ignored him. If he had threatened legal action, I would have blogged about it and brought it even more attention. But he asked. That made all the difference.
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This is the divide we are seeing in the generations of users now - back in my day, I had pseudonyms and multiple e-mail addresses, you bet. I did a lot of racy stuff that I never wanted a potential boss to find out about. Now though, as a symptom (or result) of the last ten years of reality TV, no one seems to have anything to hide - until they get in trouble for it.
You used to be able to troll anonymously and spew hate on message boards and get away with it. Th