Defending your reputation

[Mercury]

Defending one’s reputation is more than a mammoth undertaking, and with the infiltration of half-truth and outright lies in the web, one should be concerned to the quality of information about a person. You may not want to believe it, but partial information about you could be right there, plastered on an Internet site for everyone to see. Your name, you contact numbers, your residence history, your work history; your financial standing – almost every data about you can now be researched and used by other people to their convenience.

Unless you post an autobiography, partial truths and misinformation are the only things available to people who are doing checks on your name. Background checks are routine these days especially if you are applying for a job, buying a house or even applying your children for scholarship to a new school. Sometimes, people do background checks simply to know who you are.

Regrettably, the Internet is also home to identification thieves, and all sorts of people who may have an ax to grind against you. Plus, if you happen to have a few skeletons in your closet and they just happen to make it through a number of public records and documents, these skeletons just may emerge from the shadows to haunt you. Worse yet, you may be unlucky enough to share the same name with someone who to have a whole graveyard of skeletons.

Although you cannot literally do anything about your name (short of legally changing your identity) it would be best if you could track information regarding you and perform a bit of damage control. After all, information is a very powerful tool.

Here are some tips on how to avert a reputation catastrophe.

Take the time to check out what Google has to say about you – or at least your given name. It may be a case of mistaken identity or you do have a couple of unflattering stuff written about you from a certain group of non-admirers. These can be a smear on your reputation, and could work against you when seeking a loan or a better paying job.

Check out all possible variants of your name on Google; and check out each and every website that crops up. If you have your own website and you don’t wish Google to display it at their SERPs (search engine results pages), you can ask them to remove it altogether. Then again, if someone else has a site dedicated to your less than perfect traits, the SEs cannot take it down. You have to contact the site owners and ask them to take it down for you.

Try scouring “People Search Engines Too” (PSE). Google can only do so much. A number of sites like Facebook, Friendster and MySpace often escape detection however, PSEs can give you a more thorough look into what other people are saying about you or what your namesakes may have done (as long as it is posted) that may reflect badly on your online identity. Try combing through sites like Pipl, Wink, ZoomInfo, and Spock.

One of the drawbacks of some Social Network sites is that they gather a variety of information for a variety of sources and present them as a whole... even if the information comes from two (or more) people. Suddenly you and your namesake (someone with the same name as yourself) have a singular identity. This will not bode well for you at all if your namesake happen to be a convicted felon, pedophile or ...

As for using Spock, its bot software sometimes pulls individual words from your site (including your blogs) and attaches them as tags to your online profile. Now, this may not sound as damaging at all – that is, until you start writing about bankruptcy or pedophilia or terrorism. So, Spock has now inadvertently labeled your name with the tags: bankrupt, pedophile, terrorist... Nice!

You can do damage control here though. You can contact Spock and have the PSE edit or completely remove the misinformation. You can do this by checking out their contracts page or their privacy policies, and yeah, you need to register (for free) with the site as well.

When you subscribe to wikis, you have to remember that anyone can edit your post. So you should also try checking out the most prominent wiki site these days: Wikipedia. An erroneous edit on your page can be defamatory; people often subscribe to Wikipedia as a source of bible-truth, you know. Keep an eye for possible harmful changes, and edit it immediately should something nasty come along.

If this still does not sound quite appealing, you can put down $5 a month to use the services of Reputation Defender, particularly their software called MyPrivacy. This is still a relatively new service so it may take some time to finally work out major kinks.

Stay tuned for more way to defending your rep online!

[Lyte]

Seems like everyday there are new and "exciting" ways you can find yourself embroiled in some kind of identity issue! Whether it's someone trying to mess with your rep or steal your identity, we have to become much more diligent about protecting ourselves!

[dr911]

Mercury & Others,

These web sites you write about (“People Search Engines Too” ) are all relate to "Intelius". They are countless lawsuits related to Intelius practices.

Unfortunately, in todays world information is bought 7 sold very cheap. In the US, all utility companies (electric, gas, phone, cable, & cell phone) companies sell YOUR info !!

Be very careful !!!!

[BlueEew]

Having a good reputation and a large fan or friend base is great. This way you are always trusted for doing and receiving things. Also say if you made a forum. You have many friends to invite.

[Mercury]

Get your name off major mailing lists. Mailing lists are the favorite resource of ID thieves. And often, you subscribe to these without further thought about preserving your online identity. Often ID thieves sign you up for a change of address, and this will eventually reroute your credit card identity to the designated new address – and well, you get the picture! Getting your name off some of the major mailing lists will cut down the risk of identity theft by a good 50% to 75%.

Sadly, there is no way to get rid of junk mail altogether. The next viable course is to sign up for ProQuo’s free services; their software will help delete your name from some of the major marketing list including those under the umbrella of Acxiom, ChoicePoint and Direct Marketing Association. Often, the deletion of your name simply entails a request from you that you do not wish to subscribe to any market listings whatsoever. With other cases, you need to fill out formal forms for name removal, as with the cases for Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, among many others.

These forms will be sent to your email via ProQuo. You need to print them out, fill up the forms and send them through snail mail. Basically, you are asking these companies to stop selling your information to other companies, particularly those who send pre-approved credit card offers. Through ProQuo, you can also have your name on the Do Not Call List to escape from telemarketers.

Check up on your own Internet identity. Since just about anyone can do a background check on you, then you should do one as well – on your own name. This will give you an idea of how other people may perceive you when they check up on you.

Some of the most commonly available information include: your current residence and contact numbers, and place of work. These can be available for free! Those sites that require payment can give you even more detailed descriptions of your Internet persona like: criminal charges, licenses to carry weapons, property ownership, civil status, tax payment information, number of children, name of parents, name of co-workers, even the names and current employment of your neighbors… the list of what people can find out you can go on and on!

If you would really like to control the information regarding your ID, you can freely request a copy of your public records reports from such sites as ChoicePoint; of which the company will send you a form via email, which you must print out, fill up, attach other documents (like a copy of your driver’s license or bills that show proof of address) and send it back to ChoicePoint via courier services or snail mail.

If you have the gumption, you can order a copy of your annual reports from the three biggest credit bureaus. These reports are free, and these usually contain important financial information like: your cell phone history; your change of residence; your old and new credit lines; and your work history.

It’s important to be aware that credit reports are not up-to-date and can contain erroneous information! According to a 2004 study conducted by the US Public Interest Research Group, there is a one serious clerical error in every 4 reports that can be legally damaging to a person’s ID; so serious in fact, that the person may be denied work or credit or insurance benefits.

Once you have your reports, you need to go over them with a fine toothed comb. Remember, this covers both your legal identity and your Internet persona, so being careless with details can cost you a lot.

Also try to be equally attentive in choosing which companies you order these reports from. Read the fine print on these free reports because some of them just may have a hidden price tag attached. We recommend getting your reports from AnnualCreditReport.

Stay tuned for more way to defending your rep online!

[Mercury]

Performing damage control can be quite tough but necessary. Okay, so maybe you have less than pristine character background. All those late partying college nights and drunken football brawls may be memories to cherish (enough so that you actually flaunted rowdy pictures on your blogs and Friendster accounts and MySpace page simultaneously,) but these are not the least bit helpful when you want to impress a potential employer or even client who just has a knack for background checks.

Deleting these pages or accounts will not help you at all, because once something is posted up on the World Wide Web, it tends to stay there for a long, long – and we I mean, long time. If you are doing checks on yourself and you just happen to come across a really nasty score attributed to your name, you just might need a more drastic course of action.

You can try is Reputation Defender’s MyReputation (ReputationDefender). For $10 a month (or to be more precise $9.95 according to the page,) you can avail of its MyReputation services like tracking down what other people are saying about you. The company raises its price to $30 (or to be more precise $29.95) if you want to indeed have some of the nastier bits completely removed.

Now this does not go without any controversy because this is really strong-arm tactics utilized against public records and Internet ethics. If the bad cannot be removed from the Internet, Reputation Defender will try to overwhelm it with more positive stories about you, and make sure these stories actually rank higher in the SERPs than the bad ones – for a price, that is.

[Lyte]

Again... more good information!