Online Reputation Management To Keep Your Nose Clean?

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?"

Anonymous Coward

[BigJClark]

I half expect this article to be posted by an 'Anonymous Coward'.

Not for everyone

[Saib0t]

I can imagine this:
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: -_-'

Yeah, but I'd like to erase my own idiot-ness

[thomasdz]

I was an idiot 15 years ago:
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...

[MiniMike]

At least, I couldn't find anything negative about them posted anywhere...

How to Manage Your Reputation in One Easy Step:

[aquatone282]

Stay the hell away from tequila.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[eln]

I never thought my name was all that common, but apparently Google things I'm a Mathematician, Associate Professor at two Universities on two different continents, and a former Canadian member of Parliament, so I've either led a much richer life than I thought or my name is more common than I realized.

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.