November 6, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Why Reputation Management is Important

With the internet being prevalent in many people’s decisions about where to shop or where to get their services, it isn’t hard to see why reputation management is important. Because of the rise of online review sites, your competitors and customers who are angry with you from one reason or another have an outlet to take their frustration out on you anonymously. There is really no way to verify what may or may not have happened between your business and the person leaving the review on the other side of the computer, especially if you have no idea who they are, which means it is important that you don’t let these spiteful negative reviews affect the business you are getting now.

Maintaining a positive reputation on the internet is why reputation management is important to businesses that may be being written about online. With a good reputation management company taking care of your online credibility, you won’t have to worry about constantly scanning several different review sites to make sure nobody is posting fake or negative reviews about your business. Reputation management companies can develop a strategy which allows your customers to post their good experiences online, while at the same time making sure that negative reviews, or reviews from competitors are seen by a few people as possible. This is especially important for sites that do a lot of their business online that may not have a lot, or any, physical foot traffic who you can talk to about their grievances with your store.

Positive reputation management will allow you to gain customers who are more likely to make bigger purchases because they can see on review sites that your company is trustworthy and is well-run. Better reviews can also increase your search engine ranking spots, especially if they are written well and have other people who link to the review. Reputation management companies can do the backlinking for you, letting you draw in customers who may be searching for something similar, but might end up coming across your site, or the review about your site, in the process

When people who are on the fence about doing business with 2 or more businesses do their research, you are going to want them to find all the good reviews about your business that they can. These sorts of people aren’t going to be the type who might only buy one small thing and then not come back to your site, there is a reason for a lot of research, and that is to determine which business is the best for them in the long term. If they see a negative review of your site as the first thing they see, they probably will not get a good first impression, and may not end up using your site at all.

Reputation management is something that almost any company can use, and see positive results from in a matter of days and weeks.

November 4, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Facts About Online Reputation Management

When a company is spoken poorly of on the internet, with the reviewer having no personal accountability, an online reputation management firm can help overcome an angry customer or your competition to make sure that their bad reviews of your business does not end up costing you customers. While it is a good thing that the internet can allow you to reach a huge collection of customers without too much of a problem, there are review sites online that can serve as a shining example of what your company does best, or they can be used as a platform from which to bring your company’s good reputation down. A good online reputation management firm can protect a company’s reputation online by pushing down bad reviews, responding on behalf of owners, and getting customers to put up good reviews of their own.

Pushing down bad information on business review sites is the most important part of online reputation management. The fewer people who see the bad reviews, the better it is for the business, especially if the reviews are from your competitors or from a customer who is disgruntled. The way that reputation management companies do this is by shooting a lot of links to the bad reviews that are anchored by “negative” texts. This causes bad reviews to drop in the search engine ranking positions, allowing good reviews to take its place. The bad reviews will technically still stay on the site, but you won’t have to worry about very many people seeing them and forming their opinion about your business on a negative review.

Some online review sites allow owners to respond to potential customer complaints, online reputation management companies can do this for the owners, which will save the owner time, and gives the reputation company a direct voice to use their experience in rebuking negative reviews. Since very few reviewers are ever going to return to respond back to the owner once they have their say, it will effectively look like you have successfully defended your business without a whole lot of trouble. This is particularly useful if there is a specific problem about your business that has been fixed or is in the process of getting fixed, since nobody else is going to be commenting on it after a while.

Some online reputation management companies will go the extra mile for their clients and help to get customers to put up their own reviews about the business, usually only contacting satisfied or return clients. This ensures that the reviews are going to be positive, and you should be able to get quite a few positive reviews to help balance out any negative reviews. If there is some sort of overall score that the site gives to businesses based on the percentages of good reviews and bad reviews, you will get a big positive boost with the influx of new positive reviews. These positive reviews can also be spread around the internet and given their own backlinks so they are the ones that show up in the search engines, further negating the impact of a bad review.

November 3, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Marketing managers barely pay attention to social media until a real crisis hits their brands

Many marketing managers barely pay attention to social media until a real crisis hits their brands. At that point, they’ll rush into action with no real plan or strategy behind the frantic tweets and Facebook posts they send out in response to the rapid spread of untrue rumours or angry complaints across social networks.

Yet the online space – especially social media is increasingly becoming ground zero for reputation crises for organisations. Marketing and PR executives need to think about how to respond online in a systematic manner to a reputation crisis.

Perhaps the first important step is to realise that one can plan for reputation crises that play out partly or mostly online, even if it is difficult to predict when they’ll hit or what form they will take.

The key here is that marketers need to continually assess the risks to their companies’ reputations and plan for a range of scenarios. Most companies know where at least some of the weak links in their reputation lie and can think about how they will communicate around them in a crisis situation.

For example, if a marketing manager knows that the contact centre is slow at answering emails, that the organisation will be reporting poor financial results or that it has experienced a high rate of returns for a particular product, he or she can begin crafting a response strategy for social media just in case the issue turns into a crisis.

It’s important to pair this strategic understanding with the operational processes and tools needed to track and respond to online reputation issues.

Marketers must also ensure their front-line social media employees know what to do when there’s a hint of trouble in the air and who to turn to for help, information and resources.

Most medium and large organisations will find it worthwhile to invest in true online reputation management (ORM) solutions that give them the ability to monitor social conversations for mentions of their brands and issues that are relevant to their businesses.

ORM tools empower marketers with the knowledge they need to respond intelligently to a crisis situation. The more marketers know about an unfolding crisis, the better they can manage it and the better their outcomes will be.

With ORM, they can see what conversations are taking place, and how quickly certain thoughts and sentiments are moving through the social media universe. Often, they can get an early warning of a crisis that allows them to nip it in the bud – perhaps by placating an angry but influential customer before his or her complaints get out of control or stamping out a false rumour.

These solutions also help marketers to manage work-flow across teams and priority areas so that they can keep on top of responses to customers. And these tools also give organisations insight into how effective their responses are in defending or enhancing their online reputations in a crisis.

Companies like ClydeStan offer a comprehensive online reputation management platform that goes beyond simple monitoring. Their professional services are designed to eliminate or minimize the impact of damaging reviews and Internet articles and promote a positive online reputation for individuals and businesses. Furthermore, offering leading online reputation management solutions to help people and businesses to promote, protect and defend their online reputation.

In a real-time world where customers are always online and sharing their opinions about the brands they interact with, crisis management is becoming the default mode of operation for many companies. But organisations that have the right tools in place to listen to social conversations, respond to them quickly and measure the effectiveness of their interventions can turn these crises into opportunities.

By responding quickly, humanly and proactively to a crisis in reputation, companies can create trust with consumers. ORM tools empower organisations with the tools they need to do just this.

ClydeStan employs a strong team of experienced public relations, legal, marketing, and technology professionals, trained to remove or bury defamatory articles, reports and other online complaints by creating and optimizing positive Internet content.

About ClydeStan

ClydeStan LLC is the market leader in online reputation management since 2004. No other reputation company has a client list of celebrities, doctors, lawyers, business owners, accountants, consultants and individuals choosing ClydeStan to promote, protect and defend their online reputation.

October 31, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

The Need For Advanced Online Reputation Management Has Never Been More Important

Reputation management is of grave concern to many. Fairly or not anyone can put up a free website or blog and post something negative about anyone else. Many times these negative postings are anonymous so the credibility of the poster cannot be determined.

Most of the time, these negative postings don’t even make it onto the reputation management radar. They are buried deep within the search engine rankings and very few people ever see them.

However, there is another method that has empowered people to achieve high rankings for negative posts in recent years and that is on websites that have achieved trust and authority within the search engines. Some sites allow consumers to rate products and services from online vendors.

They try to offer a balance view and rating system. But, what happens when a Web business lands upon a consumer advocacy website and has been trashed in the public eye? This is where reputation management and SEO kicks in.

The overall idea of reputation management is both proactive and reactive. Proactive reputation management means establishing a well-known and liked brand with positive reviews. Reactive reputation management means reacting to untoward publicity from unhappy customers (or even competitors).

While both proactive and reactive reputation management can be covered under the guidelines of public relations, such as addressing the claims on message boards, blogs and websites, a search engine optimization expert is most often called in when one of these unfavorable opinions gains high rankings.

The most common method of managing a firm’s reputation through SEO involves trying to push down the unfavourable posting within the search engine rankings. This is also a hotly debated topic since some will consider this manipulation of the rankings.

Those who undertake SEO reputation management will try to elevate the positive posts that are currently below the unfavourable post to being above this post. Another method of SEO reputation management involves getting new favourable posts above the questionable post. Most often SEO reputation management involves both methods.

If a post is downright defamatory, then legal action can be taken and the search engines alerted. But, most of the time, these negative posts either have an element of truth in them (such as an unfavourable news story) or are someone’s biased opinion.

In either case, the business owner must decide whether is it’s wiser from a business sense to contact the website posting the objectionable content and asking them to take it down. Or, if by contacting the website, this may unleash more controversy and unfavourable comments to follow.

In this case, reputation management and SEO work together to devalue the unfavourable opinion at least in regard to the rankings. Since having a bad reputation in the search engine rankings can cost a company thousands of dollars, hiring a Internet Reputation Expert like ClydeStan http://www.clydestan.com to help do some damage control is usually a cost that is well worth it.

ClydeStan, the leading online reputation management solutions has several solutions to help people and businesses to promote, protect and defend their online reputation.

ClydeStan offers a comprehensive online reputation management platform that goes beyond simple monitoring. Their professional services are designed to eliminate or minimize the impact of damaging reviews and Internet articles and promote a positive online reputation for individuals and businesses.

The need for advanced online reputation management has never been more important. A 2010 Microsoft study revealed that 70% of recruiters and HR professionals rejected candidates based on information they found online. More recently, a study by ChannelAdvisor found that 92% of U.S. Internet users read product reviews and 89% of those respondents said the reviews influenced their purchase decision.

“We are living in an age where first impressions are found online. People used to check the Yellow Pages for a job, a date, a pizza or a plumber, but now they check Google,” are common phrases – “Someone can hide behind a hateful comment, video or post that remains online forever and can damage your personal life or business. It is online terrorism.”

ClydeStan employs a strong team of experienced public relations, legal, marketing, and technology professionals, trained to remove or bury defamatory articles, reports and other online complaints by creating and optimizing positive Internet content.

About ClydeStan

ClydeStan LLC is the market leader in online reputation management since 2004. No other reputation company has a client list of celebrities, doctors, lawyers, business owners, accountants, consultants and individuals choosing ClydeStan to promote, protect and defend their online reputation.

July 11, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Free Tools To Monitor Your Online Reputation

Places that can damage your reputation are everywhere online. Below is a list of the most common areas that you might be concerned with when it comes to safeguarding you r online reputation.

Search Engine Results. By far the most destructive effect of negative postings is that they rank high in Google and other search engine results. They can materialize here either because they are posted on a high traffic site such as Yelp or RipOff Report, or any popular website that ranks high in the search engines. When someone types your name or company name in Google, they will then see this site with a description that mentions your company and possible “how bad of a company you are”.

Online Marketplaces. Sites like eBay, Amazon, and industry buy sell trade forums, that you might to sell goods all permit customers to post highly visible reviews. Even if you have all good reviews, one negative review can stand out and create a nightmare for your sales. If the evaluation was written by an irrational individual and is defamatory toward your company, this can in fact impair your business.

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Review Sites. It is progressively more common these days for people to use review sites to find goods and services. This includes people who don’t often use the internet and might be searching for a local business to try out. On review sites like these, if you have only one review and it is a harmful one, it will ruin your rating and may prevent people from choosing you. A good example of a review site is Yelp.com where anyone can post a review about your business.

Online Complaint Sites. These are sites where people can post a complaint about you and basically say whatever they want without verification and in most cases they can fie a complaint anonymously. The owners of these sites will often not remove negative comments even if the author asks them to. Sites such as these are protected and immune from legal action because they are shielded by a law called the CDA Sec. 230 which states that they are not responsible for comments or content posted by a user or third party. There are also sites such as the ComplaintsBoard.com and Scam.com that are widely read.

Social Media. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have millions of users. Facebook is one of the most-used websites online today. Harmful comments that are posted on these sites can appear on the first page of Google’s search results. Social media sites allow any user to make any comment un-moderated and usually will not mediate unless the comments violate the sites terms of service (Profanity or Hate Speech Against A Group, Religion, or Race).

Forums. In forums, there are numerous users “Venting” about things that displease them. In a forum related to your services, a person can effortlessly tell thousands of people to stay away from your company for unsubstantiated or spiteful reasons.

Blogs. Almost everyone has a blog these days, and they often rank well in the search engines. A blog gives someone a stage in which they can circulate anything they’d like to with no moderation from anyone else. Lots of blogs have thousands of readers and some even send their posts straight into their subscriber’s email inboxes. This can cause extensive damage to your company if something bad is being said about you.

The internet is jam-packed of places where any user can post offensive comments about your company, and these comments can effortlessly find their way to thousands if not millions of people. While it’s fantastic that every person has a right to be heard on the Web, few people apprehend the damage this can cause businesses.

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Below we outline some of the free tools available for monitoring your online reputation.

Blog Monitoring

1. BackType Blog Comments Monitoring – This tool indexes conversations from blogs, social networks and other social media. It also has an alert function that e-mails updates whenever a search term is mentioned in a comment.

2. BlogPulse – BlogPulse is a blog search engine with several complementary tools such as Trend Search and Conversion Tracker that analyzes the data it collects.

3. Google Blog Search – This is a Google beta search engine for blogs.

4. Technorati – Technorati is the leading blog search engine indexing millions of blog posts in real time. It also tracks the authority, influence and popularity of blogs.

Twitter Monitoring

5. Monitter – A real-time Twitter monitor for up to three keywords at a time.

6. TweetBeep – This tool provides hourly Twitter alerts sent via e-mail. You can specify keywords, people and links to track.

7. Tweet Later – TweetLater has a number of features for Twitter users, and it also monitors Twitter and e-mails you a digest of the tweets that contain your specified keywords. You can also use this to track your @replies.

8. Twitter Search – Twitter Search was formally Summize. It searches all Twitter activity for keywords, links or user activity in real time.

Link Monitoring

9. BackTweets – This is a service by BackType that provides an engine to search for specific links mentioned on Twitter.

10. WhoLinksToMe – A link search tool that tracks backlinks and makes them easily sortable by anchor text, origination, and by the target URL with enhanced reporting capability. You can also import links from Google Webmaster Tools for enhanced analysis.

Other Tools

11. Google Alerts – Your keyword search results are sent via e-mail for keyword mentions in news, web, blogs, video and groups categories.

12. BoardTracker – This tool searches discussion boards and forum threads for your specified keywords. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts.

13. MonitorThis – MonitorThis is a search aggregator for up to 26 search engine feeds.

14. Naymz – A social network focused on reputation, personal branding, and identity verification. Basic version is free.

15. Purewire Trust – An online portal that helps people verify reputation information about themselves and those with whom they interact online. You can search by e-mail address, URL or web application.

16. Yasni – This is a search engine dedicated to finding people on the web through publicly available information, including images, videos, social networking profiles and posts.

With the number of tools available, you will probably need to do some research to determine which services fulfill your needs. Usually a mix of a few of these free services will cover your bases, but you will need time to do the manual work necessary for the tools that are not automated.

To ask us for a free quote or help you, please click here

May 28, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Understanding Internet Defamation and Internet Reputation

What is Online Reputation Management – Internet Defamation?

The Internet is a great method for immediate communication, to any place in the world. But this has also become a medium for ruthless attacks on the reputation of businesses and individuals, by posting offending and slanderous information about individuals, companies and reputed brands. Online attacks are done mostly through blogs, forums and review sites.

Negative reviews about a person, a company or a brand can be posted in blogs, forums, chat rooms and on review sites by anyone – at any time. In spite of how baseless and untrue the reviews may be, they can still create doubt in the reader’s mind, tarnishing the reputation of the individual, company or the brand mentioned in the review. Researches show that only a very few people dig deeper in to search results past the first three pages.

Internet Defamation – how dangerous?

When people get really emotional and write defamatory reviews and blogs on the internet, they may perhaps think, “I’m gonna show him/her”. But what will happen after that emotional hype, we really wonder! Often people stop thinking about the negative review that they wrote and move on with their daily chores, forgetting that they have set fire on someone else’s life. Why this happens? Anyone is free to express his/her opinion on Internet, without much restriction. A person with an average knowledge can easily publish statements, articles or news items across the world in an instant, even without any editing. Thereafter it will linger in cyberspace for months or even years, impossible to amend or hide, creating many problems. With the popularity of blogs, forums, community message boards and social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook, posting one’s opinion about a person/a company or a brand has a become very easy and it will reach thousands of people in a few clicks. If such reviews are left unchecked, it can create a serious impact on one’s online reputation. Do you need advice? Click here

A few words about Defamation: Defamation can be defined as an act of making untrue and erroneous statements to a third party, to damage the subject’s reputation. This includes several sub categories; including Libel and Slander. Defamation also includes unprivileged publications that contain false or defamatory statements. Protect yourself/your company/your brand from negative online image: If negative information about you/your company /your brand exists online, you can take it far from the first page of search engines like Google or Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc. by approaching a professional online reputation management company, like ClydeStan LLC. We will help you to track, manage and repair your or your brand’s online reputation. Do you need advice? Click here

You need a good online reputation – or else!

A good online reputation is more valuable than money or any other possessions. Be sure you have a spotless online identity! You can ‘Google’ your or your brand’s name and see what people say online. Are there any negative comments or reviews about you or your company or brand? When someone types your name/ your company’s name/ your brand’s name into Google, the result should only have pages of your website followed by social media profile pages and may be a couple of positive reviews about you / your company/ your brand. The visitors should never come across a string of offensive, derogatory and unanswered negative reviews, comments, blogs or press releases. You may perhaps ignore the bad online reviews and comments saying you cannot please everyone all the time. But can you imagine a friendly relationship of yours getting sabotaged, your business getting slowly declined, your brand facing bad times just because of those reviews?

Actually most bad reputations online are caused due to neglect. Whether it is individuals or business, people don’t manage online details properly ending up creating poor online impression. Search engines can defined as digital versions of Pandora’s Box. You need to be increasingly active online to be aware what’s being said, good or bad.

You need a good Internet Reputation Company because:

To put in simple terms, it takes years to build a good reputation, personal or professional, and just minutes to destroy it. A bad online reputation may spoil your entire business and many good relationships. So don’t wait for that to happen!

ClydeStan helps individuals, companies and brands to build, maintain and safeguard good online reputation. By combining the power and far reaching impact of Search Engine Optimization & Social Media Marketing, along with our online tracking and reporting web applications, we will ensure that your Internet Reputation is as good as it should be. Do you need advice? Click here

May 20, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Internet Defamation Suit Tests Online Anonymity

It bills itself as the world’s “most prestigious college discussion board,” giving a glimpse into law school admissions policies, post-graduate social networking and the hiring practices of major law firms.

But the AudoAdmit site, widely used by law students for information on schools and firms, is also known as a venue for racist and sexist remarks and career-damaging rumours.

Now it’s at the heart of a defamation lawsuit that legal experts say could test the anonymity of the Internet.

After facing lewd comments and threats by posters, two women at Yale Law School filed a suit on June 8 in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Connecticut, that includes subpoenas for 28 anonymous users of the site, which has generated more than 7 million posts since 2004.

According to court documents, a user on the site named “STANFORDtroll” began a thread in 2005 seeking to warn Yale students about one of the women in the suit, entitled “Stupid Bitch to Enter Yale Law.” Another threatened to rape and sodomize her, the documents said.

The plaintiff, a respected Stanford University graduate identified only as “Doe I” in the lawsuit, learned of the Internet attack in the summer of 2005 before moving to Yale in Connecticut. The posts gradually became more menacing.Some posts made false claims about her academic record and urged users to warn law firms, or accused her of bribing Yale officials to gain admission and of forming a lesbian relationship with a Yale administrator, the court papers said.

The plaintiff said she believes the harassing remarks, which lasted nearly two years, cost her an important summer internship. After interviewing with 16 firms, she received only four call-backs and ultimately had zero offers — a result considered unusual given her qualifications.

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Another woman, identified as Doe II, endured similar attacks. The two, who say they suffered substantial “psychological and economic injury,” also sued a former manager of the site because he refused to remove disparaging messages. The manager had cited free-speech protections.

LIFTING THE MASK

“The harassment they were subjected to was quite grotesque,” said Brian Leiter, a professor at University of Texas Law School. “Any judge who looks at this is going to be really shocked, and particularly shocked because these appear to be law students.”

The suit is being watched closely to see if the posters are unmasked, a step that could make anonymous chat room users more circumspect. It also underlines the growing difficulty of protecting reputations online as the Web is used increasingly to screen prospective employees and romantic partners.

“They can’t hide behind anonymity while they are saying these scurrilous and menacing things,” said Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He said the site was not liable under federal protections that are more lenient on Web sites than TV and newspapers. Prosecuting the manager could also be difficult because he did not write the posts, Volokh added. But the anonymous posters look liable and their careers could be jeopardized, he said.

“This ought to be a warning to be people that if you say things that are not just rude but arguably libellous and potentially threatening and perhaps actionable on those grounds then their identity might be unmasked,” he said.

Finding and identifying the posters — including one called “The Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah” — could be tough but is not impossible. The process involves subpoenas issued to Internet Service Providers for records, and then more subpoenas to companies, institutions or people identified on those records.

Yale decided to use ClydeStan defamation repair on all individuals concerned – today, there are no mentions about the case on the Internet. Both females are working for leading law firms.

About ClydeStan:

ClydeStan is leading in Online Reputation Management, specializing in removal of any unwanted listings, posts, character defamation, ripoff reports through online reputation repair.

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May 19, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Mug Shot Removal, Press by ClydeStan

I saw your mug shot on the Internet – you are fired.

There’s one of two reasons you’re not laughing at the moment. Most commonly it’ll be because the joke wasn’t funny. Then you have the person who was arrested, rightfully or wrongly, not charged but the photo is on a mug shot website. You might recognize the young Microsoft Entrepreneur… On the Internet. Forever?

The Internet’s a great wee thing. If you want an MP3 player, you’ll search for it on Google. Vintage cars? Google. Oh, what’s that? You’d like to find out a bit more about the person you’re trusting in business or even a family member? Yeah, Google will help you there too. In fact, people are becoming increasingly reliant on search engines for absolutely all their earthly needs, and – for better or worse – search engines are getting better at finding information too.

More and more vigilante for profit websites are springing up like Florida Arrest.org, Jail Base.com, Mugshots.com, Phoenixmugs.com, and Whosarrested.com just to name a few

Your mug shot could cost you a fortune, your job, family and friends!

New: Fast Track () Removal for $499.00– Click here

Imagine if you were arrested and booked but your charges were later dismissed in court. That’s all good news with the exception of your mug shot that is still on the first page of Google. Now you understand the plight of so many who were vindicated in court but still found guilty in Google.

There was once a time when only serious criminals and celebrities had to worry about their mug shot going public, but now even a traffic arrest can result in your photo landing on the first page of Google.

Of course, you can buy a book – learn about SEO, SERM, ORM – Google algorithms, Yahoo, Bing and all the other search engines. Or you call in the experts.

ClydeStan is the recognized market leader removing mug shots, unwanted links, reviews, photos, etc.. We specialize in Online Reputation Management, removal of any unwanted listings, character defamation, ripoff reports through online reputation repair or simple deletion.

Click here to have your mug shot or unwanted links removed from search engines and websites forever.

May 13, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

The Laws of Reputation Management

Law #1 – Everyone has an online reputation

We all have an online reputation to maintain. If you don’t believe us, go ahead and “Google Yourself”– We promise you won’t go blind! Even if you don’t find anything written about you, then that’s still your reputation–or lack thereof. In 2011, you should make sure that what’s found in Google, Facebook, Twitter et al is something you’d be equally comfortable showing your mother, friends or your boss! And the recent SuperInjunctions have shown there are a lot of stories out there. You don’t have to be one of them.

Law #2 – Your reputation is an extension of your character

It doesn’t matter how hard you work on managing your reputation, it will only ever be as solid as your actual character. Tiger Woods had a reputation of being the greatest golfer–and a family man. His character revealed otherwise. As Abraham Lincoln once said,

“Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”

Law #3 – Every reputation has an Achilles heel

While Toyota may have spent years telling us that its cars are the most reliable in the world, sticking gas pedals told a different story. In fact, even though Toyota tried to deny the increasing incidents of sticking accelerators, its customers were the ones steering the car manufacturer’s reputation in another direction. Instead of denying the issue, Toyota should have been the first to recognize it! When you recognize and acknowledge your weaknesses, before your customers, you have the opportunity to craft a response before the public outcry. Do you know your reputation’s weakness?

Are you concerned about your Internet Reputation? Please click here for a quotation to resolve your issues.

Law #4 – Listen twice, act once

It’s too easy to simply jump in and reply to that tweet or Facebook post–without fixing the underlying problem. Instead, you should spend time actively listening to the feedback you’re collecting about your reputation. Listen for trends. Listen for opportunities. Listen, listen, listen–ok, that was three listens, but you get the point. When you actually take onboard what your stakeholders are saying about your reputation, you do more than just fix a problem, you make sure you fix the underlying issue that created the problem in the first place! GAP’s customers weren’t so much angry that the company’s logo was changed, they were mad that the company hadn’t initially thought to listen to their feedback–a decision the apparel company quickly reversed!

Law #5 – A crowd is louder than a solitary voice

At some point every company realizes the power of the crowd. You’ve heard of “crowd sourcing” right? It called “crowd voicing.” Simply put, your reputation is going to be far greater shaped by a crowd of opinions than one single voice. Your choice in 2011 is to determine whether you want that crowd to be a choir or a lynch mob? By being proactive, by loving and nurturing your online community, you can build a harmony of satisfied customers–all willing to say great things about you. Alternatively, you can ignore your customers and wait until they become so angry, so disgusted by your actions, that they rise up against you. Just ask P&G which it would have preferred in hindsight!

Law #6 – If you build it, they will come

It’s 2011, do you know where your customers are? Have you built them a thriving Facebook community? Can they receive customer service via Twitter? Do you have a blog that keeps them updated on all the changes with your products? If you build an official, company supported social network, then your customers will know exactly where to head, should they have a question or complaint. Ensure you remove your name from Google.

Are you concerned about your Internet Reputation? Please click here for a quotation to resolve your issues.

Law #7 – If you don’t build it, they will

If you decide not to embrace your reputation stakeholders, then you run a huge risk that they’ll create their own community. Not so bad, if you happen to have a strong reputation–Apple gets by with no official social media effort. But, it’s generally not a good idea to stick you head in the sand and ignore those that want to share their experiences with you. If your customer wants to complain about your abusive customer service reps they may well head to Facebook or Yelp. If you don’t have an official presence then you are leaving these dissatisfied customers to define your reputation for you! Resolve to discover where your customers like to “hang out” and then make sure you’re hanging with them!

Law #8 – Your reputation WILL come under attack

No matter how hard you try, your reputation will someday come under attack. It happened to us–and we are the number one reputation management consultants! In fact, Oxford Metrica warns that during the next five years, 83 percent of companies will face a crisis that will negatively impact its share price by 20 to 30 percent. I’m pretty sure BP didn’t think such a crisis could happen to it–and that’s a lot of profit at stake!

Law #9 – Being stubborn is more expensive than saying “sorry”

United Airlines, what in the world were you thinking? Seriously! It would have cost you $1,200 to , but instead you refused to take responsibility. Two music videos and 10 million views later, you ended up with a tarnished reputation and apologized anyway. Don’t make the same mistake as United. When you receive a complaint from a customer, look beyond your pride. Look beyond the immediate expense of making the customer happy. Instead, ask yourself, what’s the worst case scenario here? What’s the lifetime value of this customer–value that would be lost. How could this hurt future sales, new customer acquisition, and your reputation? I’m pretty sure United Airlines wishes it could go back in time and cough-up the $1,200.

Law #10 – Three strikes and you’re out

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time and you may as well kiss your reputation goodbye. The law here is that most customers will forgive you the first time you screw-up. Some, will forgive you a second time it happens. Get to the third screw-up and yerrrrr out! Seriously, how many times has Comcast come under fire? A gazillion? I’ve lost track, but it’s gotten so bad that the company is now undergoing a massive re-branding–arguably due to its negative reputation. Companies rarely re-brand when they have a great reputation! When you make a mistake, make sure you learn from it, tell your customers you have learned from it, and make sure you never repeat it!

Are you concerned about your Internet Reputation? Please click here for a quotation to resolve your issues.

April 11, 2011 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

ClydeStan Announces Protection Strategy For Businesses

ClydeStan, a Bermuda-based Internet reputation management firm with offices in London and San Antonio has announced a new brand protection strategy for both large and small businesses. ClydeStan.com is a leading search engine marketing firm that has carved a niche by developing Internet brand reputation management packages for executives, professionals, celebrities, athletes and businesses.

ClydeStan.com focuses on helping individuals and companies protect their good online image. With years of experience in Internet marketing and brand protection, the founders have developed a tactical solution for companies and individuals looking to clean up and protect their Internet presence.

In the past decade, the Internet, specifically search engines have changed the way consumers get information. Before making almost any decision individuals and consumers are using major search engines such as Google to research who, what, and where. A simple Google search can reveal just about anything on anyone. Whether the information is true or not, once it goes online it’s there for everyone to see. Unregulated consumer advocacy websites, angry loggers and forum posters are popping up left and right. The slander war has taken over and it has given jealous competitors, angry ex-lovers, disgruntled employees and anyone else who feels the itch to jump online a public venue to slander individuals and companies.

Negative and false information published online can be extremely destructive. Companies can easily be put out of business by false, negative slander online. Individuals can lose potential relationships, careers and much more. Recent studies by CareerBuilder showed that hiring managers are using Google and Social media websites to research potential candidates and harmful content found online is losing people jobs. A new survey from Kaplan Test Prep reveals that 82 percent of admission officers use Facebook in their recruiting, so while you may think some pictures of you and your buddies on Facebook is harmless, a college recruiter may be analyzing the picture to determine if you are going to be admitted to their school or not.

A global leader in Internet brand management, ClydeStan.com has developed a proprietary process for protecting and cleaning up online reputations. Using sophisticated search engine marketing (SEM), content dissemination, social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and algorithmic research, the firm ensures your online presence is truthful and positive.

In February of 2011 the company announced a new Social Media brand protection strategy designed for businesses. “After months of intensive R&D on this particular strategy, we are ready to launch it and release it to our clients. It’s something we are very excited about and know our clients will love,” says Mark Tinger, Senior Consultant at ClydeStan.

The strategy uses a combination of major social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to promote a brand quickly and effectively. This proprietary technique increases overall social network reach and visibility creating powerful online assets in the process.

The firm’s new social media strategy was launched in February and is now fully operational.

For more information, please visit http://www.clydestan.com

March 6, 2011 in Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Susan Arnout Smith’s Gripping Firsthand Account of Facebook Impersonation

It’s something that most people rarely consider, but online impersonation is a threat to each and every one of us. In a gripping account for Salon.com, playwright and author Susan Arnout Smith shares her story of how she became the victim of a sustained online impersonation attack and how, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get Facebook to do anything about it.

The article is so well-written that it merits a full read, but here’s the summary. At the behest of a PR person, Smith overcame her trepidations about Facebook and joined the popular social networking site. Within days, she was already seeing the benefit of the website, connecting with old friends, expanding her professional network, and more.

Then, out of the blue, she received an e-mail from her PR adviser asking about an unusual Facebook profile. It had Smith’s name, it had Smith’s picture, but it wasn’t Smith.

Filled with offensive language and claims that Smith was paying for sex, the fake Facebook profile was a vicious attack on Smith’s reputation. Worse yet, it had been online for eight months, well before she decided to use the site for yourself. In other words, for eight months, someone (or some people as Smith comes to learn) had been pretending to be her online, ruining her professional credibility and destroying her life without her even knowing it.

The rest of the article details Smith’s efforts to have the fake profile removed, explaining how Facebook offered little assistance and how she eventually had to take matters into her own hands to discover the individuals behind the account.

We often talk about the importance of online reputation management here at ClydeStan.com, but never has the need for proactive ORM been demonstrated more clearly than in this article. Perhaps if Smith were monitoring her name online, she could have spotted this fake profile sooner. Maybe if she’d invested in personal branding tools, she could have fought off the fake Facebook profile with positive online content.

Obviously, you can’t blame Susan Arnout Smith for what happened to her. She was a victim, pure and simple. And that’s the important takeaway from this story. We are all potential victims of cyberbullies and other online thugs. Accepting that fact may be difficult, but it is necessary in the new digital age to keep your web reputation in tact. Clydestan’s solutions reach from removing your link from Google, ‘delete my name’, remove name Google including remove name Google seearch.

Your reputation is only as good as your Google results. What are you doing to protect yours? Do you have the need to ‘delete my name or remove your name?’

Check out the ClydeStan website for more information about California’s recently passed anti-impersonation law, and what you can do to protect yourself from online impersonation.

February 23, 2011 in Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Internet Reputation Solutions

If you Google your company’s name, what do you see below your listing? Do you see reporting company posting a negative complaint? If so, there are numerous Internet Reputation Management companies out there that will remove, suppress, repair, and/or make it disappear. Common phrases are ‘remove link from Google’ or ‘remove name Google’.

A simple example is to Google: “best internet reputation company” – result: ClydeStan LLC. So we know what we talk about.

In the last few years there has been numerous online reputation companies popping up to repair damaging information on the Web. With majority of potential customers going online to research products and services, bad reviews or complaints that turn up in a search can mean lost business. Reputation management services promise to highlight positive pages and bury offending sites deep in search results.

Most reputation management services work by tracking what’s written about a client on the Web, then doing search engine optimization, promoting positive pages, and creating other sites that will push damaging information off the first pages of search results. Here at ClydeStan we take various approaches. Click here to find out more. Simply searching for ‘delete my name’ or ‘remove name Google search’ and hoping that there will be a magic button to clear a web reputation is pie in the sky.

It’s still hard to say how many businesses are using reputation management services, but industry players say clients fall into two categories. Some want to understand and respond to customer complaints; others often just want negative posts to go away. The later seems to be the avenue for most businesses. They just want negative information to go away, buried into the back pages of the search engines where people can’t find it. Whatever the category is, corporate reputation is key to any business and reputation management is something no corporation should ignore. Click here to find out more.

Online reputation management solution companies have evolved in the past few years in response to the social media networks that have exploded with Internet users posting negative information about people and businesses, and then there are the reporting companies such as rip off report, Scam, Compliantsboard, My3cents, and many more, that accept complaints that are not substantiated. Many of these complaints posted by these companies are from angry customers, disgruntled ex-employee, competitors, etc. To defend against these online postings and listings has fueled the need for reputation companies that can restore a business’s reputation, image and good name on the internet.

Altering search results isn’t cheap. Several reputation solution companies said the typical cost for a small business client to get a negative complaint suppressed into the back pages of Google could cost around $3,000, or more, depending on how many negative reports there are. More extensive services marketed to large corporations could run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

What should the small business owner think about, these business service? Many say you should take partial ownership in repairing your online reputation, image and good name. It’s not just going to go away hundred percent by simply paying an online reputation solutions company to bury the negative information far back into search engine pages. While these online corporate reputation firms can help business’s influence results on Google by suppressing the reports, the business owner still has to address the long term damage these complaints have done to his reputation. The sooner you can remove the complaints posted or listed about your business the easier it will be to restore your reputation, image and good name. Do not hesitate to contract the best reputation management firm when your business reputation is at risk.

December 19, 2010 in Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

FAT cat lawyers have made a fortune from defamation cases

FAT cat lawyers have traditionally made a fortune from defamation cases. But could they soon become thinner thanks to a new breed of cyberspace “fixer”.

Instead of launching expensive libel cases, those who have been maligned on the internet and in the blogosphere are increasingly turning to online web experts to rescue and then safeguard their good name.

Online reputation management companies offer instant damage limitation and can bury bad news quickly, whereas bringing a case to court can take up to a year. Not only do they act immediately, but these reputation specialists are also more cost effective and much cheaper than forking out a hefty bill for legal fees.

ClydeStan’s expert Mark Tinger of London based reputation specialists explains: “The internet is brilliant for businesses and for boosting celebrity profiles but it has also opened up a hornet’s nest. One negative blog, scurrilous forum post or unfair review can damage a company or an individual.

“Sadly, this is becoming more common as unscrupulous businesses try to wreck a competitor’s reputation. Legal action has always been the traditional method of redress but libel actions for online falsehoods can cost an absolute fortune and take up to a year to resolve, if they can be resolved at all.

“This process is too slow in a world where bad news travels fast and spreads globally on the World Wide Web.”

Proving liability for internet libel is notoriously difficult. There are issues over jurisdiction and the responsibilities of website owners, who tend to protect themselves with disclaimers.

“If you lose a court case, the result could be more bad publicity,” – “You also run the risk of having to pay the other person’s costs.”

Repairing your reputation on the Internet, on the other hand, carries no such risks. ClydeStan, whose clients span several countries and include high-profile individuals and international PLCs, explains how it works…

“Our experts use Internet monitoring technology and other techniques to help firms improve their online profiles by hiding damaging stories and promoting positive headlines. We use our in-depth understanding of search engines and how they work to make sure only the results that clients want to view are shown when people search for their name, business name or brand on Google or other search engines.”

For example, if page one of Google contains versions of negative newspaper articles, they could cause maximum brand damage, so speed is then essential to regain the brand. Mark and his team can create hundreds of new sites full of positive information and then saturate Google, Yahoo and other search engines to the point that negative content no longer poses any risk. This forces anything undesirable back to pages two, three and into the internet abyss. In short, online reputation management can effectively bury bad publicity by manipulating Google.

“At its core, online reputation management is burying something negative so deep that you won’t find it. It is taking Google page one, then two, then three and using techniques to ensure the search engine only displays what we want it to.”
A growing number of businesses are falling victim to spiteful online attacks. These include the setting up of websites solely to destroy reputations.

“All it takes is for one disgruntled ex-employee to post malicious comments on a blog or an Internet forum about a perfectly good business. Bad news travels very quickly on the web. That business is suddenly at risk because the Internet has no fact-checking capability and all because of someone who has an axe to grind,” says Mark.

“Or if one order in a thousand doesn’t go smoothly and somebody posts negative comments on the web, then a company’s future is jeopardised and jobs are at risk.

“It’s unfairly damaging but mud sticks, so the sooner you can wipe it clean the better. That is why it’s vital to use a reputation management strategy.”

But ClydeStan believes there may well still be a role for good defamation lawyers and sees a future where legal eagles and reputation specialists can work in tandem.

He adds: “A good lawyer will tell you if you have a cast iron case and then it would be sensible to take a two-pronged approach. Hire a reputation management company like ours to come in and clean up as quickly as possible while at the same time pursuing the offenders through the courts.”

November 10, 2010 in Blog, Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

The Top Five Tips For Clearing Up Your Business’s Reputation Online

Remember the not so distant past? If you had a bad client or two for your business, you could expect, at worst, for them to give negative reviews to their family members and friends? This would have a slight, if any, impact on your business’s operations. For the most part, your good clients will continue to be loyal while losing one or two of the bad ones will save you future headaches. Fast forward a few years into the 21st Century. The power of the Internet has completely changed this paradigm.

Your business’s name and reputation can be severely damaged if one or two individuals start a smear campaign. Blogs, consumer review websites, social networking, and all other forms of online communication can wreak havoc on the brand you have spent so long building. Our team at Web Reputation Management is aiming to change that. We apply the latest techniques to ensure that your business’s image is protected and enhanced on the Internet. Below are the top five tips to help your business recover from any online tactics designed to lower your credibility in the eyes of potential customers.

1. Create A Variety Of Accounts For Your Business At Leading Social Networking Websites

2. Invest In High Quality Press Release Writing & Submissions

3. Have Multiple Websites Created For Your Business, Ensuring Your Ranking In Search Engine Results

4. Display Any Business Organizations You Are A Member Of On Your Website

5. Never Back Down & Allow A Pointless Attack, Rant, Or Slandering Of Your Business Online

Want to learn more? Please visit our contact us page. We will be more than happy to arrange a web meeting to discuss your web reputation management needs and how we can help improve your business’s standing on the web.

October 26, 2010 in Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

The Risks of Outsourcing Online Reputation Management to Cowboys

Online reputation management services require a very personalized touch. A good provider must have intelligence, intuition, patience, stealth, and strong communications skills …

Plus successful, non-theoretical experience with public relations, SEO and social media marketing campaigns. Below you find a guideline what to look out for. Please read carefully through the article and do not hesitate contacting ClydeStan LLC about our working practices, references, etc..

Online Reputation Management is a complex skill set which relatively few people or agencies can smoothly deliver, yet. So before you trust someone else to manage your online reputation, you should be aware of some of the risks and pitfalls that could happen:

• They will hire unskilled, overseas workers to post random content and gibberish under your name. This won’t do anything except waste your money and make you look like a grade school dropout. Unfortunately, quite a few of the firms you’ll find in searches for “reputation management” specialize in this type of service.
• They’ll build spammy links that will cause your sites to get mistrusted by the search engines. Some providers don’t understand the importance of link building – they just make lots of profiles and hope for the best. Others will try to get you some links, but they’ll get quick, spammy links that will ultimately harm your website and profiles’ reputation in the search engines. The best firms have their own portfolio of high-quality web properties to get links from, and they work with smart, English (or native language) speaking SEOs to build the right links and keep it authentic.
• They’ll create hokey, praise-filled content – making it obvious you are trying to “cover up” something. I call this the “bad plastic surgery” effect. Some firms will awkwardly deny everything on your behalf, write cornball press releases, or commit other not-so-transparent blunders that will make people more curious and fixated on any negative information.
• They can monitor your reputation, but can’t really deliver effective solutions to any problems that arise. Monitoring your reputation is important. And responding to a negative comment or forum post is usually a good idea, but it’s not as effective as actually removing the post or thread. Skilled reputation managers can use SEO and social media marketing to make negative information less visible in the search engines – so people are less likely to even see it in the first place.
• They’ll upset your defamer, or unwittingly “tip them off” them to what you’re doing. If someone contacts people on your behalf in the wrong tone, or if it becomes obvious that you are awkwardly trying to “manage your reputation” (suppress their content) – it can get very ugly. Defamers can get even more vengeful.
• They’ll make profiles or content for you that will be discovered and publicized as a fake. If someone writes content for you that is discovered or called out as a forgery, it can make your online reputation exponentially worse. Wal-Mart was eaten alive for this, so was Jet Blue. Social media audiences are incredibly discerning as to what is “authentic” or not, and they love to dish out harsh vigilante justice on anything that smells fishy. You don’t want to be the target of this!
• They will provide you with few details of what they are doing. Be aware of operations that promise big results, but have no information listed on their own websites or blogs about what they actually do. “Proprietary” or “secret” processes oftentimes mean “questionable” or “non-existent.” Yes, there are things that should be confidential — like previous clients’ campaigns or identities — but you have every right to know what someone is going to do if you hire them.  
• They will create sites or accounts for you and then hold them “hostage.” Some firms will register sites for you (like YourName.com) and create blogs and profiles, but then refuse give you access to them. They require you to keep paying their monthly retainer indefinitely or they threaten to pull the plug on any progress they have made. This is extortion. You should insist on registering all websites in your own name, you should demand a list with the logins and passwords to all accounts and profiles a firm creates, and all work they do should be “yours to keep” — forever — even after your contract with them is finished.  Note: ClydeStan has no ‘monthly’ fees and offers a 100% money back guarantee.
• They will take your money and do nothing. There are some greedy, slick-talking SEO and reputation management firms who will take anyone who calls – regardless if they have the time or expertise to deliver for you. In contrast, the best SEOs and reputation managers are in-demand and are less likely to be affordable or to have available time for your case. Therefore, it can be much easier to get signed up with a huckster than to hire a solid provider.

Beware of online reputation management services for cheap or promises to repair your online reputation quickly. It may be very tempting to believe someone has a “magic bullet” that will quickly make your troubles go away overnight, but it’s unlikely to be true. The process usually takes 1 to 2 weeks to prepare.  Time comes at cost. Compare the ClydeStan price range and read the ‘About ClydeStan’ page.

Doing online reputation management yourself will often yield the most authentic results, but it is a complex and time-intensive process that many people need help and guidance with. Just be aware of the possible risks, do your research, and pick a firm you’d feel comfortable to have representing your personality and brand in all types of online situations. Read also the about section of ClydeStan explaining the process in more detail.

October 9, 2010 in Knowledge, Press by ClydeStan

Leveraging Customer Reviews to Help You Manage Your Reputation Online

Undoubtedly, no single thing matters as much for increasing sales and engendering loyalty as building a great customer service brand. And considering the immediate and ubiquitous nature of the Internet—where details about a negative customer experience can spread like wildfire—it’s more important than ever for small business owners to join the conversation online and help to manage their company’s reputation.

Whether you like it or not, consumers are most likely talking about your business on the Internet. And if you’ve recently heard about a customer service problem at your business, it’s likely that you became aware of the situation in the same way that most consumers do: by finding a review about your company via a search engine.

So how can you be proactive about managing your reputation online? Let’s look at two ways:

1. Increase the number of online reviews about your company. You can begin this process by asking your top customers to post a review about your business on customer review sites such as Yelp.com and MeasuredUp.com. By asking your top customers to post reviews, you’ll likely generate a number of complimentary reviews quickly and easily. These reviews will help to offset any existing negative reviews, help to increase your visibility on search engines, and help to attract potential customers who are searching for your products or services online.When you come across a complimentary review about your business, you should add a quick “Thank You” in response, and mention that you appreciate the support of your customers.
2. Respond to negative online reviews about your company. You can tackle this effort by having a staff member—who understands your company culture and brand—spend a few hours each week searching the Internet for unflattering reviews about your company. (Note: There are online tools available that can help you accomplish this.)When there’s a comment field available in a review, the staff member should respond with some helpful and constructive content that shows that you care about providing good customer service. In addition, they should state that they are an employee of the company. The respondent should never pretend to be a consumer, because that deception will likely be discovered, and will likely produce even more uncomplimentary content.The employee should also include a link to your website in the response, which can help to drive traffic back to your website.

The goal here is not to have only good reviews, because even some of the best companies have bad reviews written about them. The goal is to achieve an effective balance, and to make sure that you don’t allow uncontrolled rumors to spread online. You also want to demonstrate through association that your brand is focused on good customer service . . . and that you’ll take steps to improve it when you fall short.

By leveraging online reviews about your company in your favor, you can often have a greater impact on the purchasing intent of consumers—who are deciding what to buy and where to buy it—than even the best TV commercial or magazine ad can have.

Click here to see how ClydeStan can help you.

September 17, 2010 in Knowledge by ClydeStan

Tips for Protecting Your Personal Information from FTC and Others Sources

FTC Privacy: Tips for Protecting Your Personal Information

From FTC.GOV – the FTC website has an excellent article on how to protect your personal information. This is a substract from the FTC article:The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) encourages you to make sure your transactions – online and off – are secure and your personal information is protected. The FTC offers these tips below to help you manage your personal information wisely on Internet, and to help minimize its misuse by others.From FTC:(1) When you are buying online, before you reveal any personally identifying information, find out how it will be used and whether it will be shared with others. Ask about company’s privacy policy – this is very important – how to use of your information and are they kept the information confidential?(2) Read the privacy policy on any website directed to children. Websites directed to children or that knowingly collect information from kids under 13 must post a notice of their information collection practices.(3) Put passwords on your all your accounts, including your credit card account, and your bank and phone accounts. Avoid using easily available information – like your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, the last four digits of your SSN or your phone number – or obvious choices, like a series of consecutive numbers or your hometown football team.(3) Minimize the identification information and the number of cards you carry to what you’ll actually need. Don’t put all your identifying information in one holder in your purse, briefcase or backpack.(4) Keep items with personal information in a safe place. When you discard receipts, copies of credit applications, insurance forms, physician statements, bank checks and statements, expired charge cards, credit offers you get in the mail and mailing labels from magazines, tear or shred them. That will help thwart any identity thief who may pick through your trash or recycling bins to capture your personal information.(5) Consider ordering a copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies (CRAs) every year. Make sure it’s accurate and includes only those activities you’ve authorized. CRAs can’t charge you more than $9.00 for a copy and in some states, your credit report is free.(6) Use a secure browser when shopping online to guard the security of your transactions. When submitting your purchase information, look for the “lock” icon on the browser’s status bar to be sure your information is secure during transmission.

Privacy, Public Access & Policymaking in State Redaction Practices

From NASS.ORG:This white paper is written by The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS). This white paper “Privacy, Public Access & Policymaking in State Redaction Practices” is specifically written for state and local leaders on how to copy with data security in public records across the Internet.The paper explored the issue of information leaking and sought ways to provide policymakers to remove Social Security numbers, driver licensing numbers, and other sensitive information from public documents and records. Lapses in privacy by the state governement can mean lawsuits for unintended disclosure.As a part of their open records laws, states have been working hard to make public records available online. However, state laws haven’t always kept up with technology change. Secretaries of state and other stewards of public information are addressing the need to adopt new practices that protect Social Security numbers and other personal information from identity thieves and other unscrupulous viewers while maintaining records that can be used for legitimate business purposes.The white paper offers insights on common issues in developing redaction programs, as well as practical advice on identifying cost-effective solutions. A survey section includes details on redaction practices in 19 states. Additionally, the paper stresses the growing need for states to educate the public on the prevention of identity theft.In preparing this white paper, they realized that public officials can do a better job of giving citizens the advice they need to proactively protect their identity and keep personal information out of the wrong hands, especially when it comes to submitting forms to the government.

How to Protect Your Private Information

From THE WALLSTREET JOURNAL REPORT:SECURITY: How to Protect Your Private Information Your life is an open book online. It doesn’t have to be with the right privacy protection.

CDT Top Ten Ways to Protect Your Privacy Online

From CDT.ORG: Here are top 20 ways to protect your online privacy:1. Look for privacy policies on the Web2. Get a separate email account for personal email3. Teach your kids that giving out personal information online means giving it to strangers4. Clear your memory cache after browsing5. Make sure that online forms are secure6. Reject unnecessary cookies7. Use anonymous remailers8. Encrypt your email9. Use anonymizers while browsing10. Opt-out of third party information sharing.

Your identity…for sale

From credit bureaus to grocers to unscrupulous brokers, there’s a healthy trade in your good name

Google to dig up more personal records

Software to index more state files such as school test scores.Googling something or someone? If the state of Florida has public records about your subject, they might show up in your search results.Florida joins five other states – Arizona, California, Utah, Virginia and Michigan – already participating in Google’s effort. Google hopes to get local governments involved in the effort.

Open Government Guide

The Open Government Guide is a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states. If you’re a new user of this guide, be sure to read the Introductory Note and User’s Guide.

Canada Personal Information Protection Act

Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act:The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has prepared this guide to help individuals learn about their rights under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Canada’s new private sector privacy law.PIPEDA sets ground rules for how organizations may collect, use or disclose information about you in the course of commercial activities. The law also gives you the right to see and ask for corrections to information an organization may have collected about you. If you think an organization covered by the Act is not living up to its responsibilities under the law, you have the right to lodge an official complaint.What is personal information?”Personal information” under the Act means information about an “identifiable individual.”For example, “personal information” includes yourname, age, weight, heightmedical recordsincome, purchases and spending habitsrace, ethnic origin and colourblood type, DNA code, fingerprintsmarital status and religioneducation; andhome address and phone number”Personal information” does not include the name, job title, business address or office telephone number of an employee of an organization.How does the Act protect my personal information?The Act gives you control over your personal information by requiring organizations to obtain your consent to collect, use or disclose information about you. The Act confers certain rights on individuals, and imposes specific obligations on organizations.

Beyond the basics: Protect personal information

Best practices for preventing identity theft and protecting your privacy online.

What to do if you’re a victim of fraud

When you use a credit card, you can be vulnerable to fraud, whether you pay online, over the phone, or even in person at your neighborhood grocery store.If you think you’ve been the victim of fraud or a scam, immediately follow these steps. The faster you contact the proper authorities, the more likely you are to minimize the damage a scammer can do to your identity, your credit, and your bank account.

How to limit your personal data in online directories

Internet phone books, people-finding services, and other online directories make it almost impossible to keep your personal contact information entirely off the Web.It’s fairly easy for anyone to find your name, phone number, home address, or e-mail address-for business or social purposes, advertising or marketing, or even criminal intent.Here are a few ways to help control the amount of personal information you give to the world.

Help protect your privacy in online communities

Many Internet users belong to one or more online communities, where they can share ideas and information with people who enjoy similar interests.Such communities include e-mail distribution lists, message boards, newsgroups, blogging sites, social networking sites, and more.You can help protect your privacy and still enjoy the benefits of these groups by following a few basic guidelines.

Beware of scams when job-hunting online

Phony job opportunitiesBy creating phony job ads, scammers hope to fool job hunters into sending them personal information (called phishing). Scammers post their ads on legitimate job sites.Phony job ads often use familiar-looking or convincing company logos and verbiage. Sometimes they even provide links to fake Web sites that appear to be those of real organizations.

Genealogy: Avoid common scams while you seek and share your family history online

Before you start digging for your family roots online, check out the following guidelines to help spot and avoid common genealogy scams.

Video: Protect the privacy of your personal information

Watch this video to find out more about protecting your personal information so you can help to avoid identity theft and other kinds of fraud when you go online.

Cyberdating: Staying safe while having fun

Provided here are the basic tips for online dating safety, intended as a quick reference guide. Do not be embarrassed to insist on these rules. If your cyberdate is genuine they will understand and respect your wishes.We have much more detailled information about cyber romance and online dating safety in our Internet 101 section.

Reverse Phone Lookup Review

Provide honest reviews on reverse cell phone number lookups. Using a cell phone to send and receive text messages and/or images, is very similar to using e-mail or instant messaging and some of the same safety rules apply. You cell (mobile) phone can be a direct link between you and spammers, scammers, identity thieves, online predators and cyberbullies. On this page you will find some basic tips on cell (mobile) phone safety:

Wireless Phone User Information

Provide information on wireless users and wireless providers. Keeping your Cell (Mobile) phone and yourself safe means understanding the potential risks and how to protect against them. Precautions and solutions can differ slightly, depending on where you live. The information on this page relates directly to the United States of America and the United Kingdom, with information on how to find similar information for other countries