Find, destroy
Michael Fertik’s firm recently was hired by a Western Washington woman who had recorded a video testimonial for a doctor who performs unconventional treatments. Her video was posted on the Seattle-area doctor’s Web site.
The woman later concluded the doctor was a sham and she wanted the video removed. That’s where Fertik came in and attempted to set things right.
“We describe our service as search and destroy,” said Fertik, a 28-year-old Harvard law school graduate who launched ReputationDefender.com last year. The company hunts down and removes cyber-graffiti or offensive Web comments that can haunt people long after they’re posted.
“Half of our customers just want us to search for information on them,” Fertik said. “The other half wants us to destroy.”
ReputationDefender.com charges $10 per month to hunt for online information about someone, and then another $29.95 to target that Web information and try to remove it.
Fertik has succeeded in clearing the woman’s testimonial from several Web sites that copied and posted the video. But he hasn’t convinced the doctor to remove the video from his site.
“We ask politely. And we try to show them why it’s in their interest to do what we ask,” he added.
ReputationDefender and other firms that scour the Web for personal information reflect a growing fear by many that they’ve left potentially revealing images, comments and videos across the Net.
In some cases, people inadvertently leave passwords or other data that could be used in identity theft. Some cases involve people who’ve resorted to cyber-bullying – posting online comments or rants against others and which now can be seen as nasty or vicious, said Fertik.
“Anything you do or say on the Internet can become a tattoo on your forehead,” said Fertik, who works from an office in Menlo Park, Calif.
Another firm is MyPublicInfo.com, based in Arlington, Va. CEO Pat Dane said the firm’s most popular product is Public Information Profile, an exhaustive report trying to gather anything one can find across the Web.
For $79.95, it examines property and court records, but also tries to find general references to people found on blogs and news sites, such as Yahoo News.
“The Web is so big that it’s very difficult for the average person to go out and find all those references,” said Dane.
ReputationDefender’s Fertik at first thought his customers would mostly be parents worried that their kids had revealed information through social network sites or other places. But most of his clients are younger people looking for jobs or advancing a career but worried about embarrassing online pictures or comments.
Firms like ReputationDefender have no way to remove court records or news articles, unless there’s an overt error in the records.
Said Fertik: “Our goal is to remove items that are invading your privacy. If you have a momentary mistake in judgment and said something you shouldn’t have, in a discussion group, you shouldn’t have to endure that forever.”
Fertik tells the half of his customers wanting something destroyed that there’s no simple solution to getting material taken off any one site, or in some cases, multiple sites that have copied images or comments.
“But for a lot of people, they figure they can afford $29.95 just to see what comes of it,” Fertik said.
Among those customers coming to him to remove something online, half have posted the material themselves. In that group are people who’ve allowed pictures to be posted that they don’t want seen now by possible employers. “Take a look at MySpace and search for ‘keg stand’ photos or videos to get an example of that kind of youthful mistake,” Fertik said. “Anyone who was in a keg stand photo five years ago will find that’s like an albatross around their neck.”
The other half looking to remove something have found offensive or negative material that others have posted on the Web without their permission.
The value Fertik offers customers is a combination of persistence with skilled insights into finding the right people to ask about removing something.
“Sometimes it’s finding the right Web sites, because some sites feed content to other sites,” Fertik said.
Fertik noted his firm’s approach with Web site managers is always white hat – meaning no attempt is made to take down a site or instigate any hacks. However, the company is prepared to take legal action.
“We can become less polite if we have to, but that’s a later step.”