Reputation management firms bury Google results by placing flattering content
I&#x27;m not saying that these companies should exist for the example in the article, a high profile business person that failed miserably and tried to do the same thing a second time, yes it is just downright wrong he has a bunch of apparently fake PR about him claiming he&#x27;s great and a genius and give him your money.<p><i>However</i>, there are valid use cases for such a service. There are things you and I might say or do in haste that quickly get forgotten and are never even seen by most of the population but...<p>The &quot;1%&quot; are in the spotlight, they can&#x27;t go an ice cream cone without articles about their ice cream appearing online [1].<p>What if a high profile individual is falsely accused of rape, or of fathering a child, and it turns out it was a false accusation. Those dozens or hundreds of articles&#x2F;tweets&#x2F;videos aren&#x27;t going to go away. It will quietly be announced by a handful of places &quot;so and so was cleared, person was lying&quot; and for months or decades those accusation articles are going to stay high on search results.<p>If John Smith gets a DUI, unless he did a bunch of property damage or killed someone in the process, an article isn&#x27;t going to be written. If a billionaire does it [2] articles get written.<p>If a billionaire calls someone a pedo in a heated exchange, articles are written about it [3]. If Jane Doe calls someone a pedo (or worse) on twitter, one of her 13 followers might favorite the tweet, if another human being even reads it.<p>I imagine a significant percentage of people using these services aren&#x27;t trying to defraud people, but simply trying to hide something embarrassing that has been preserved digitally, widely, that John and Joan Public simply never have to worry about. (nipple slip, porn tape, telling someone to eff off when they&#x27;re having a bad day, tweeting something in haste like calling someone a creepy pedo, etc).<p>What if someone was formerly a neo-nazi, and they&#x27;ve spent the past decade fighting against hate (several of these types exist [4]) and living a completely different life? Should they not be allowed to bury their past and be judged on their current works instead of the foolish things they did in their youth?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;time.com&#x2F;2982204&#x2F;paul-mccartney-warren-buffett-selfie&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;time.com&#x2F;2982204&#x2F;paul-mccartney-warren-buffett-selfi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;money.com&#x2F;a-billionaire-22-year-old-was-fined-30000-for-drunk-driving&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;money.com&#x2F;a-billionaire-22-year-old-was-fined-30000-...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-us-canada-50695593" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-us-canada-50695593</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;01&#x2F;18&#x2F;578745514&#x2F;a-former-neo-nazi-explains-why-hate-drew-him-in-and-how-he-got-out" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;01&#x2F;18&#x2F;578745514&#x2F;a-former-neo-nazi-e...</a>