Haunted by a revealing photograph from your drink-mad office party posted on Facebook? Berated by an ex-lover on a blog posting? Or is your business being skewered online by a vindictive customer? Then Gary Powers is waiting to hear from you. He can help.
In the modern digital age where seemingly everything and everyone is online, a new industry is emerging to "manage" the internet footprint that people and businesses leave online. "Reputation managers" can clean up and shape a person's online history: burying the damaging stuff and promoting the good.
Given the numbers of famous people who arguably are in need of such a service, and the millions of others leaving an online footprint around the world every day, the potential market is dazzling.
Kate Moss is already rumoured to be using online brand reputation management to make sure Google searchers come to positive stories first. By contrast, due to recent online leakings of abusive rants about his ex-girlfriend, actor Mel Gibson's fourth result on a Google search is a negative gossip story.
The same goes for Paris Hilton, the socialite and heiress. The fifth result on a Google search for her brings up disputed claims that customs officers in Corsica had found marijuana in her purse and had briefly detained her. A good reputation manager might be able to push that story down Hilton's Google results chain. Lindsay Lohan, currently in jail, is famed for use of her Twitter account where she frequently sends out ill-advised updates. A reputation manager could help to suppress those Tweets or even try to get them deleted.
Powers, who works for a US company called Reputation Defender, is paid to help promote the positive, hide the negative and even have hostile internet postings removed altogether. Fees vary across the industry. For $15 (£9.50) a month, Reputation Defender will work with a client to clean up and monitor their internet reputation. They can also send you an alert whenever a new reference to your child is posted anywhere online. For $30, you can subscribe to a service that will try to destroy hostile internet content. In 2008 the firm raised $2.6m in investment funding.
The Guardian
