Yesterday, I heard a sponsorship plug on NPR for a company called ReputationDefender which claims on its website to be "the world's first comprehensive online reputation management and privacy company." I visited the company's website and was intrigued with its offerings. I found this statement on the company's product page particularly enticing: "You can’t manage your online identity unless you know what others can
see about you online. Looking on the first page of Google is not
enough. Our Reputation Advisors perform a custom search of the far
corners of the Deep Web for every reference to you, including over 40
of the biggest social networks. We then monitor the Web every month for
additional references to you and deliver them in an easy-to-read update."
I proceeded to download a free ReputationDefender app on Facebook that individuals can use to monitor their Facebook privacy settings. After repeated attempts to get the app to work, I gave up in frustration. Then I visited the app's review page on Facebook and discovered that others have also struggled to make it work. While I realize that Facebook might have changed its site in a way that causes problems for ReputationDefender's app, I was floored that a company that prides itself on defending online reputations has not used its Facebook page to let people who downloaded the app know how to get it to work correctly - especially since the first complaint surfaced on its Facebook page on June 2.
I'll be curious to see whether ReputationDefender notices this blog post in its own online reputation monitoring efforts and swings into action to address the complaints of people frustrated with its Facebook app.
