How does it work?
I keep hearing these commercials on the local vast right wing conspiracy radio for Reputation.com. Apparently, if people get on the intertubes and talk about how you or your company suck, Reputation Defender comes in saves the day. I wonder exactly how they do this? Google bomb? Spam? Content and link farming? Suing people?
October 21st, 2011 at 9:35 am
If Reputation is like ReputationDefender then maybe it sends out letters like this one I got a few years ago.
____________________
ReputationDefender, Inc.
2023 Cherokee Parkway
Suite #18
Louisville, KY 40204
January 10, 2007
Dear Gentlemen
We are writing to you in behalf of Ronnie Segev. He has asked us to
contact you and see if you will consider removing the content about him
at:
http://comedian.blogspot.com/2006/01/man-arrested-for-trying-to-get-refund.html
and
http://comedian.blogspot.com/2006_01_22_comedian_archive.html
Please allow us to introduce ourselves. We are ReputationDefender,
Inc., a company dedicated to helping our clients preserve their good
name on the Internet. Our founders and employees are all regular
Internet users. Like our clients, and perhaps like you, we think the
Internet is sometimes unnecessarily hurtful to the privacy and
reputations of everyday people. Even content that is meant to be
informative can sometimes have a significant and negative impact on
someone’s job prospects, student applications, and personal life. We
invite you to learn more about who we are, at
http://www.reputationdefender.com.
When our clients sign up with our service, we undertake deep research
about them on the Internet to see what the Web is saying about them. We
find sites where they are discussed, and we ask our clients how they
feel about those sites. Sometimes our clients express strong
reservations about the content on particular websites. They may feel
hurt, ashamed, or “invaded” by the content about them on those sites.
As you may know, more and more prospective employers, universities, and
newfound friends and romantic interests undertake Internet research, and
the material they find can strongly impact their impressions of the
people they are getting to know. When people apply for jobs, apply for
college or graduate school, apply for loans, begin dating, or seek to do
any number of other things with their lives, hurtful content about them
on the Internet can have a negative impact on their opportunities. At
some point or another, most of us say things about ourselves or our
friends and acquaintances we later regret. We’re all human, and we all
do it!
We are writing to you today because our client, Ronnie Segev, has told
us that he would like the content about him on your website to be
removed as it is outdated, and is upsetting. Would you be willing to
remove or alter the content? It would mean so much to Mr. Segev, and to
us. Considerate actions such as these will go a long way to help make
the Internet a more civil place.
Thank you very much for your consideration. We are mindful that matters
like these can be sensitive. We appreciate your time.
Please let us know if you have removed or changed the content on this
site by sending an e-mail to: daves@reputationdefender.com.
Yours sincerely,
Dave S.
ReputationDefender
October 21st, 2011 at 9:46 am
Gecko45 should hire these guys.
October 21st, 2011 at 10:15 am
I guess they never heard of the Streisand effect.
October 21st, 2011 at 10:51 am
Ah, you see, if someone post something bad, they rush right in to post the comment, “Nah huh”
October 21st, 2011 at 10:54 am
Maybe it’s the Righthaven guys looking for a new gig.
October 21st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
So it’s like Yelp! only in reverse, the anti-Yelp!?
October 21st, 2011 at 2:01 pm
“If Reputation is like ReputationDefender…”
They’re the same entity, according to their sponsorship announcement for half the shows on NPR.
October 21st, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Pete Brownell swore by it when I met him a few years back.
October 21st, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Interesting, and the way things are on the ‘tubez, it could be lucrative.
Unless they get caught defending the reputation of a sleazeball.
October 21st, 2011 at 6:09 pm
I actually know of a guy who has used them to squash a negative blog post about his business and it seems to have worked pretty well. I’m not sure of the exact mechanism but my impression is that it’s SEO in reverse, with a bunch of folks in India flooding the net with stuff to drive any negative info about your business way down the search rankings. At $2500/month (what he says he pays; of course he’s a salesman so take that with a big bushel of salt) it must work.
October 21st, 2011 at 7:01 pm
And here I thought they relied on a guy named Guido and his straight razor.
October 21st, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Protection racket? “You really should sign on with us– look at all the really negative posts about you popping up all of a sudden (heh heh).”
October 22nd, 2011 at 10:02 am
The only stuff about me I don’t care for is nonsense posted by Guy “JadeGold” Cabot, which is transparently obvious nonsense. Which, BTW, stopped when I posted a google earth shot of his house and his wife’s personal info, and showed him that the Internet wasn’t nearly as anonymous as he thought.
He has a Facebook page as well, in case anyone is curious what that assturd looks like.