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The internet is a place where mistakes can live forever -- so publicly that one may feel the occasional need for somebody to clean up after them. A new startup called Reputation Defender aims to do just that.
Embarrassing office party photos, listserv emails outlining casual drug use and blog posts filled with vicious name-calling often threaten the good social standing of the web's 1 billion citizens. Worse yet, such material, posted by a student in a fit of youthful indiscretion, could threaten the author's employability once he reaches the professional world and its army of Google-savvy hiring managers.
"I don't like the idea that kids and teenagers might suffer lifelong harm because of momentary mistakes," says Michael Fertik, one of the founders of Reputation Defender. Fertik and his partners originally conceived of the service as a way for parents to protect their children from potentially damaging postings to social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. However, Fertik quickly realized that Reputation Defender had a broader appeal.
"It seemed natural that adults might want the service, too. We all make honest mistakes, and there's no reason the Internet should make those mistakes eternally hurtful to ourselves and others."
According to CareerBuilder.com, twenty-six percent of hiring managers say they have used Internet search engines to research potential employees, and one in ten has looked on a social networking website.
Reputation Defender breaks its services into three categories: "My Reputation," which is aimed at adults hoping to track down and eliminate those momentary lapses of reason; "My Child," for parents who want to protect their children from errors of youth that may come back to haunt them later in life; and "My Privacy," which helps to remove a client's data from the web's various data brokering websites that store private information such as social security and drivers license numbers, home addresses and phone numbers.
The first two services are offered on the company's site now, but My Privacy is not yet publicly available.
Using both site scraping robots and good old-fashioned human detective skills, Reputation Defender promises to scour the internet -- particularly social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Xenga and Flickr -- for materials that could be damaging to your career, your children's chances of getting into college and even your chances of getting elected to public office.
Reputation Defender's advisory board includes a former presidential campaign speech writer, a Law Professor at Harvard and an MIT graduate.
Fertik, who himself is a graduate of Harvard Law school, concedes that there are some types of content which are close to impossible for his company to remove.
"Some clients and prospective clients would like us to get news articles in major publications or court records removed from the Internet," Fertik says. "We've had to tell them that these requests are extremely difficult to fulfill and sometimes impossible. Moreover, we consider ourselves sensitive to First Amendment issues, and we are not too keen on the idea of squelching genuinely newsworthy speech."
In such cases, Reputation Defender offers its clients a full refund.
Fertik declined to offer an exact description of the company's means of removing content. "I can say we have codified a series of procedures that we are continually refining," he said, "and that are specific to the source, location and nature of the content we are asked to destroy."
But what about the content owner? If I posted those pictures of you at the Christmas party because they are funny, it is you, and you *did* do it. Should I be bullied into removing them just because you consider it a mistake?
As Susan Crawford, Associate Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School and specialist in cyberlaw and telecommunications law, points out, "most people will take materials down just to avoid the hassle of dealing with possible litigation."
Most content owners might buckle under the pressure of threatening letters or imminent lawsuits, however professor Crawford went on to point out that if a content publisher feels sufficiently threatened he or she could bring their own lawsuit "seeking a declaration that what they posted wasn't unlawful."
The line between free speech and libel has long been a contentious debate both in courtrooms and out. But in the end it may not be that serious. Fertik makes an analogy between Reputation Defender and credit reports. "It's useful to have your credit monitored and to be on top of your credit score before there is ever a problem. It's the same way with personal reputation. In the Internet era, everyone needs to know what's being said about him or her (or his or her child) before it's too late." However keep in mind that sometimes doing something can have just as negative an effect as doing nothing. As Crawford says, "trying to shut lawful speech down often has negative reputational effects itself."
Celebrities have long employed various companies to track and monitor what is said about them in the press (you didn't really think it was Britney Spears herself suing US Weekly did you?), now you and I have the same option. The sad part is we may need it.
Interesting. It's like a press clippings service with a twist.
It's likely that most people will take materials down just to avoid the
hassle of dealing with possible litigation. This kind of practice
(writing nasty letters threatening suit) has substantial chilling
effects but isn't itself illegal. If the letter is sufficiently
threatening the threaten-ee could (in the US, at least) bring his or her
own lawsuit seeking a declaration that what they posted wasn't unlawful.
But, again, most people will just buckle rather than fight back.
One of the great things about the internet is that it gives each of us a
chance to respond to statements we believe are libelous. Libel law was
designed for an era in which very few actors could be publishers --
because of the enormous costs of distributing information. Libel law
online makes much less sense. This new business is taking a retrogade
approach that may well be popular. But trying to shut lawful speech
down often has negative reputational effects itself, as people keep
finding out.
Susan
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