| Industry | Online reputation management |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Redwood City, California, U.S. |
| Website | www.reputation.com |
Reputation.com (formerly ReputationDefender[1]) is a company located in Redwood City, California that sells online reputation management (ORM) and internet privacy.[2] Company CEO Michael Fertik has criticized review websites that don't monitor comments or require users to register.[3] The company received publicity in the United States when it managed to remove death photographs of Nikki Catsouras from about 300 of some 400 Internet sites hosting them. The photos spread to new sites, and Fertik acknowledged their removal as "a virtually unwinnable battle".[4][5]
ReputationDefender started out in 2006[1] with a focus on helping parents protect their children from damaging their reputations through embarrassing postings on social media websites, but quickly expanded to add similar services for adults.[6] Its services include monitoring of web content about their clients. When damaging content is found, the company tries to get it removed from the offending websites through methods such as sending letters to the site owners asking them to remove the content. In 2006, Susan Crawford, a cyberlaw specialist on the faculty of Cardozo Law School, commented that when contacted in that fashion, "most people will take materials down just to avoid the hassle of dealing with possible litigation." [6] Fertik told an interviewer that the company's methods do not work with all types of web content, noting that "some clients and prospective clients would like us to get news articles in major publications or court records removed from the internet," but his company must "tell them that these requests are extremely difficult to fulfill and sometimes impossible." In general, he said that the company was sensitive to First Amendment issues, and would not go after "genuinely newsworthy speech."[6] In a 2007 article, Business Week reported that ReputationDefender was offering businesses a "$10,000 premium service ... that can promote the info you want and suppress the news you don't," primarily by manipulating search-engine results.[7]
In a 2009 paper in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, law professor Ann Bartow accused ReputationDefender of "energetically exploiting online harassment of women to garner extensive national publicity." [8]
In January 2010, the company announced that it was changing its name from ReputationDefender to Reputation.com, saying that the new name communicates that the company had expanded it services "beyond the 'defensive' and onto the 'proactive' face of reputation and privacy management."[1] The page for ReputationDefender software[9] advises, "High-ranking negative content can damage your reputation online. We push negative links down by creating and promoting accurate and truthful content."
On September 1, 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011.[10]