ReputationDefender founder Michael Fertik doesn’t seem to understand the jungle he is in.
Wednesday on Slashdot was an excerpt from Andrew Lavellee’s Firms That Clean Up Bad Online Reputations. I immediately thought, “oh man, I wonder if it is about ReputationDefender, and sure enough it was.”
“Businesses like ReputationDefender and Garlik exist precisely to solve the problem of being Googled by prospective employers.”1
I remembed back in February the dragging over the coals a person got by Erik Barzeski for sending this dumb dog after him. It did not help that the WordPress King Alex thought it was an interesting issue.
That case reminded me of that guy that stole some of Kris Krug’s photos and how that guy’s censorship attempts made the situation much, much, much worse. This is known as the Streisand effect.
How does ReputationDefender help?
“The first thing we do is we just ask, very politely,” said Mr. Fertik. “Thereafter, we can get less polite,” including contacting a site’s Internet service provider to complain about the site.2
Authority, attempted censorship, and threats are the three fastest ways to piss off bloggers.
ReputationDefender’s Mr. Fertik said the company is no longer sending letters to irreverent blogs like Consumerist, which may be more likely to mock the company’s efforts. “We are no longer taking those kinds of risks with those kinds of outlets,” he said.3
“Outlets”?
I often have to respond to people contacting WordPress.org about a WordPress powered blog that has negative content about them. I have even been phoned by an irate psychic — I don’t understand why she did not know that we had nothing to do with the site that was defaming her. Almost always we have no relationship with the blog, and I reply saying so. It feels a little bit better when the contact is regarding a WordPress.com blog because then at least it is something that I can look into, but sometimes they are actually complaining about free speech.
I shall just note that [ReputationDefender] seems to promise to deliver the impossible, to people who don’t know any better, since I don’t believe that there is any way that they can remove material from the Internet Archive, where it will live on in searchable perpetuity.
In its tone, and its apparent appeal to the technically clueless (see the FAQs and the testimonials pages), it reminds me of government anti-drug propaganda from the nineteen fifties.4
“Nastiness online can erupt and go global overnight”
I feel sorry for people that don’t understand our world today, and I dislike people like Michael Fertik who sell magic beans.
Leave the dog in the yard, you are dealing with people. If you do want to change the public record, do it yourself and ask nice. You are likely better off sincere trying to get positive content about yourself out there.
- Seamus McCauley, One network to rule them all [↩]
- Andrew Lavellee, Firms Tidy Up Clients’ Bad Online Reputations [↩]
- Andrew Lavellee, Firms Tidy Up Clients’ Bad Online Reputations [↩]
- Owen Kelly, Privacy: the defence force [↩]
- Jason Kuznicki’s Irony at Cada Vez [↩]
- Venture Beat Matt Marshall’s ReputationDefender helps you clean up your reputation reads more like an advertizement [↩]
- Unlike, Lavallee’s article here is a TV news segment by CBS WCCO.com’s Frank Vascellaro that seems more infomercial than news report (where is the balanced reporting?) [↩]
- Similar services: DefendMyName, Garlik [↩]
- Monitor services: ClaimID really?, Naymz [↩]
Comments (5)
Great Post, I didn’t even know that ReputationDefender existed, generally on the internet or in the media, when you try to silence someone or impinge on someone’s free speech things are made worse. I feel bad for people who use services like ReputationDefender, when you go that route(and use a similar service) it seems like the only thing they are doing is wasting their time and money.
ReputationDefender can make things worse, not better, for their clients:
http://www.geocities.com/stuartdneilson/ReputationDefenderInc.htm
The concept that these people (or organizations) simply don’t understand the nature of the internet and its (especially the blogosphere’s) hatred for censorship – perceived or real – really rings true.
I’m reminded of the recent revolt on digg.com over the attempted censorship of an HD-DVD encoding key. When the MPAA attempted to stop the distribution of a string of numbers that could potentially allow someone to unlock and produce copies of HD-DVD movies, they sent out C&D letters to websites who hosted this key. When digg tried to comply with the letter, the whole thing blew up in their faces in a full on revolt.
The fact is that the online community is truly passionate about its freedom, and ReputationDefender, or any other company (even the MPAA) is unable to stop what the web wants to say.
It looks like Reputation Defender is also in the buisness of whitewashing sketchy peoples reputations, too…
http://www.purerebuttal.com/
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=653572&mc=1&forum_id=2
http://www.flyinghedgehogs.com/2006/10/i-think-sue-scheff-is-crook-con-artist.html
http://www.isaccorp.org/pressreleases/suescheffemptyvictory.html
http://www.cyroxos.net/articles/Sue.php
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=19136&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/youthrights/obedience-schools/critic-loses-suit.php
I think the issue here is that a lot of people use the internet to slam each other and post negative content, even sometimes for the purposes of revenge. Anybody can post almost anything they want on the internet… it’s kind of like the wild west. If someone asked me to remove something that was causing harm to someone else, I would do it (unless the person in question really wronged me). And if someone, an exgirlfriend for example, totally slams you in a blog post or message board posting stories and photos about YOU on Monday, and Tuesday you have a perspective employer looking you up, is it not fair and responsible to use any means necessary to *try* to keep the employer from seeing that? I think what we’re talking about is personal privacy vs. free speech and we all know free speech wins every time – and sadly decency and personal privacy comes last on the web.