Reputation.com (AKA ReputationDefender ) is an online reputation management company headquartered in Redwood City, California. The company claims that its products and services are designed to help businesses and individuals monitor, manage, and improve the way they appear online, across search engines, online reviews, and social media.
Video Reputation.com
Company history
Reputation.com was founded as ReputationDefender by a lawyer, Michael Fertik, in 2006. According to Fertik, it is meant to help parents after their children reveal too much online, but most of his clients are young job seekers. In 2007, the company had 55 employees and an income of $ 2 million. In January 2011, the company changed its name from ReputationDefender to Reputation.com. In 2011 was named the Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum for its effect on society. The company has raised $ 67 million in venture capital. In 2012 it does not generate profits.
In 2013, the company made several strategic acquisitions and entered the European market. In January, he bought a reputation Reputation management online company based in the UK 24/7. As part of the acquisition it began operating its second office in Liverpool. In June, he bought PaperKarma, a mobile app that stopped unsolicited mail, catalogs and offers. In July, it acquired MySocialCloud, a password management platform.
Some public relations professionals have stated that Reputation.com customers often end up paying money for services that can not be delivered. Forbes has stated that this type of tactic may cause negative material to become more common, as false-positive material is seen by Google as "cheating".
In 2014, the company opened its third office in Tempe, Arizona. Reputation.com currently has about 950 employees.
Maps Reputation.com
Services
Reputation.com is an online reputation management company, which according to author Lori Andrews asks clients to remove items about them from the Internet with "no guarantee of success." Initial cases where Reputation.com attempted to remove photos from the Internet, for example, removed about two-thirds of copies from the web, but were unable to remove the rest. Websites such as Spokeo are compensated for the individuals they direct to Reputation.com who become Reputation.com clients. The founder of Reputation.com has stated that this arrangement puts Spokeo in a position capable of benefiting from adding negative material about people with profiles on their site. In other cases, this will result in websites and social media profiles intended to rank higher in searches than negative results. It can also refer several clients to a lawyer. Companies often start by writing to website operators who host negative content about clients, asking them to remove the information. According to the Wall Street Journal , the letters "do not create a threat... but instead try to draw a sense of justice from the recipient." Reputation.com charges for increasing the severity of the language used. Usually can not remove the newspaper or court records.
The company initially charges about fifteen dollars per client, and has requested at least $ 1,000 per year for its services. In 2007, the company introduced a $ 10,000 service for executives. Some corporate software includes a scoring system used to identify consumer information and generate reputation scores for individuals. It has software that places websites where the personal data of an unknown individual is registered and attempts to get them registered. It can also track online reviews and contact customers for positive reviews, but can also hide legitimate criticisms about the company, which the company founder found to be a legitimate critique of its business model. However, the company has 1.6 million subscribers. Its main competitor is BrandYourself.
Reception
In 2012, BusinessWeek notes that "Reputation.com scam" is an autocompleted phrase when typing a company name into a Google search engine and that many unfavorable search results are hidden on the second page of search results for the keyword " Reputation.com ". The autocomplet phrase is a tactic for Reputation.com to hide any reviews about a company that marks it as a scam, even though it is legitimate.
According to The New York Times , Reputation.com is popular, but controversial, because of its attempt to remove negative information that may be of public interest. According to Susan Crawford, cyberlaw specialist from Cardozo Law School, most websites will remove negative content when contacted to avoid litigation. The Wall Street Journal noted that in some cases writing letters to detractors can have unintended consequences, although companies try to avoid writing to certain website operators who tend to respond negatively. The company's CEO said honoring the First Amendment and not trying to remove the "speech is completely newsworthy." It is generally unable to remove headlines from an existing publication or court record.
In 2008, former AutoAdmit administrator Anthony Ciolli filed a lawsuit against Reputation.com, among other defendants. The lawsuit was in response to a lawsuit filed against Ciolli by two Yale Law School students for being vilified on an Internet message board, which is a forum for current and prospective law school students. Ciolli claims to have lost a job offer as a result of the negative publication of the original lawsuit.
In a 2009 paper at Harvard Journal of Law & amp; Gender , law professor Ann Bartow says Reputation.com exploits female abuse on the Internet for media attention.
Two months after the company was founded, ReputationDefender was hired to remove images of a deadly 18-year-old auto accident from an 18-year-old Nikki Catsouras, which police said was leaked by an officer. The company can get pictures taken at about 300 out of 400 websites. The New York Post says their efforts are "very effective" but voiced concern that their polite letters resulted in offensive material censorship to their clients. Newsweek says it's not effective. ReputationDefender says removing the image is a "battle that can not be won".
Jon Ronson, author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed, says the company has helped some people become agoraphobic because of the public humiliation of embarrassing online, but it is an expensive service that many can not afford.
See also
- Streisand effects
References
External links
- Official site
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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