Sue Scheff: Don't Let The Web Kill What You Love by Michael Fertik

As someone that knows firsthand how the Internet can create you into someone you barely recognize, Michael Fertik is one of the pioneers in helping people maintain their online image. This is not about changing who you are, but letting people see the real you. Today there is so much Internet Gossip that separating it from Internet Fact, can be confusing. Not to mention many won’t take the time to determine the difference. I won the landmark case for Internet Defamation - over $11M jury verdict for damages - and that was vindication - Reputation Defender cleaned up what the defendant created. I will ever be grateful for my attorney, David Pollack, and Michael Fertik.

By Michael Fertik

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Warren Buffett said that, before the invention of the Internet. Now, in the information age, the statement has never been more truthful. That is why I started a business, ReputationDefender, that is all about protecting reputations.

Your good name, and the reputations of your family, business, and everything you love, is valuable. So, when your neighbor, a customer, or a love interest plugs your name into a search engine, what will they find?

Anyone can come along and slam you online and if that happens, search results for your name might be dominated by negative, incomplete, or even false information. A hostile online comment might represent the uncommon experience of a dissatisfied customer or disgruntled neighbor, but due to the structure of search engines, that single opinion can be greatly amplified and made to look like a universal point of view. You might fall victim to the sniping of an anonymous blogger or even a competitor posing as an angry customer.

It’s not only easy to publish half-truths, innuendo, and falsehoods on the Internet, it’s also easy to make them stick. Many people who publish negative web content know how to make it maximally destructive. Lies, rumors, or memes take flight easily, getting repeated, added to, and generally magnified. Even though some of these narratives are discovered to be false, very few of them get debunked as loudly as they are broadcasted in the first place. As a result, false content often becomes more visible on the web than, say, well-researched articles from reputable news sources. It might seem illogical that bogus speculation can end up dominating searches for you, but that’s how a rumor mill works.

A great strength of the Internet is that it gives everyone a voice. That’s also one of its dangers: it can endow fraudsters and idle speculators with the appearance of authority.

The danger is real. This does not mean you should stop using the Internet. It means that you must proactively establish your accurate and positive presence on the web before there is a problem. You need to maximize your control over what people find about you, before someone else does it for you.

There are options. Companies have developed software solutions for online reputation protection. ReputationDefender, which is now a partner with TheStreet.com network, is my company, and we do just that.

Michael Fertik is the Founder and CEO of ReputationDefender, the online reputation management and privacy company.

Sue Scheff: What is Google Saying About You?

Source: Portfolio.com

Forget your references, your ­résumé, and the degree on your wall. “Whatever’s in the top 10 ­results of a search for your name on Google—that’s your [professional] image,” says Chris Martin, founder of the small internet company Reputation Hawk, which is one of several outfits that focus on keeping that top 10 clean for their clients.

For victims of cyber-slurs, cleanup doesn’t necessarily mean removing bad press. Companies like eVisibility, Converseon, and 360i concentrate on generating ­positive content—but not too much at one time. If Google detects a ­sudden flood of suspicious Web postings, it will assign them low trust scores, preventing them from rising to the top of search results.

Nino Kader, CEO of International Reputation Management, uses a positive-content approach, calling its strategy a mix of “old-school PR and high tech.” The firm builds social profiles (on MySpace or Facebook) for clients and promotes them to blogs; it also drafts news releases and solicits coverage from traditional press outlets. Scrubbers generally work on retainer and charge anywhere from $500 to $10,000 a month.

A handful of scrubbers do try to actually remove negative content, using coercion, compromise, and occasionally cash. A first step is to contact the website and ask that the harmful post be removed. “For us to pay the site for removal is very uncommon, but less than 1 percent of the time, we have to do it,” says ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik, whose company charges a monthly fee and $30 for each item they persuade a website to remove. If a site refuses to erase an offending post, the next step is to negotiate a compromise. Ask the site administrator to substitute a screenshot for the actual text of the harmful post (a screenshot is an image, so the words no longer register as text to Google and won’t come up in a search).

When it comes to your online image, these companies argue that no one can afford to shrug off a slight. As Fertik says, “The people who are reading stuff about you on the internet don’t have to believe what they read about you beyond a reasonable doubt.” They just have to believe it enough to not hire you.

Sue Scheff: Reputation Defender Featured on CBS Early Show

(CBS) Did you ever "google" yourself and find something negative?

It should worry you. Just one negative posting can cost you a job

It's estimated that more than 70 percent of employers do a Web search on job applicants as part of their hiring procedures. More than half of them admit to not bringing someone on board because of negative information they found online.

It could be something you posted years ago, or something put into cyberspace by someone you know - or even a perfect stranger.

What can you do about it?

Michael Fertik, founder of ReputationDefender.com, had some advice on The Early Show Saturday Edition.

Fertik says he started the business two years ago with one person. He now has 60 employees. His service costs about $10 a month.

Fertik told substitute co-anchor Seth Doane that safeguarding your online reputation is “as important as your credit score nowadays. Every life transaction that you have, whether you’re looking for a job, you’re looking for romance, you’re looking for a friend - people are gonna look you up on the Web and make conclusions based on what they find.

"One random, idiosyncratic piece of content about you on the Web could dominate your Google results forever," he said. "It's such an issue: It affects people who are undeserving, people who are sort of using bad judgment, all kinds of different people."

What's worse, legal recourse is murky at best, Fertik observed, saying, "The law hasn't caught up yet with privacy. The Internet has really changed the privacy landscape in a big way and the law hasn't yet caught up with it. It's lagging behind, so far."

Fertik stressed that, "You have to be on top of your (online) reputation. It's not about narcissism. It’s about your personal brand. Especially in a down economy, people are looking you up, they’re making decisions. They're denying you a job unless they find something really good about you on the Web."

He had three key pieces of advice:

First, never let anyone set up your reputation online. Establish yourself online to create a clear and positive image of you. Don't wait for someone else to destroy it. Use what he calls "Google insurance": Create a profile on something like Facebook that's positive and tasteful. Claim the real estate on your name. What is said about you on the Web isn't a function of you living a righteous life: Anyone can say something bad about you. "Write your own history," he recommended.

Second, if there's a problem with your online reputation, you have to find it. Constantly monitor the Web. Search for full names, usernames, etc. Be on top of the game. Go deep into the Internet to Web sites that aren't indexed by Google: "The deep Web - Facebook, MySpace, the pages where the content really starts to generate and become problematic."

"Monitor yourself assiduously," Fertik told Doane.

Third: The longer it's there, the more it spreads and can be archived. If you see a problem, deal with it quickly. Get in touch with people and tell them to stop, in a kind and thoughtful way, without getting a lawyer involved right away. Reach them on a human level. If you want professional help, companies such as ReputationDefender are available. As Fertik told Doane, "Nip it in the bud before it spreads and gets mirrored and replicated. If you can't do it, you want to hire the pros."

If you do find something bad about yourself, how do you get it offline?




"Sometimes," Fertik responded to Doane, "what we do is, we overwhelm the 'bad' with good to make sure that when people look you up, they see what you want them to see, they see your good videos, not necessarily the (bad ones)."