World’s wealthiest people are using ‘reputation management companies’ to wipe their embarrassing stories from Google search results
- Reputation management companies create positive stories about their clients
- These stories help balance past controversies and improve Google results
- One New York hedge fund manager spent between $4,000 and $5,000 a month
A new kind of tech company has emerged to help people outrun their bad online reputations.
Reputation management companies will execute comprehensive plans to ensure past controversies and bad publicity fade out of someone’s Google search results.
One of the industry’s biggest movers is Status Labs in Austin, which has been listed on Inc.’s list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in America in 2019.
A growing market is developing for reputation management companies, which help client’s flood Google’s search algorithms with positive stories about their clients and drown out past controversies
A new report in the Wall Street Journal sheds some light on how Status Labs and company’s like them operate, flooding the internet with fake news sites that post positively-slanted stories about their subjects.
The company has worked in some capacity with a variety of clients, including a former member of the adultery website Ashley Madison, and a University of Missouri professor who became a target of conservative media after ending up in a viral protest video.
‘A single false accusation can cause permanent damage to a person or a company’s hard-earned reputation,’ Ryan Stonerock, a lawyer at the firm Harder LLP, which represents Status Labs, told the Journal.
‘This imbalance of power has made the first page of Google the first, and often times the last, impression for individuals and companies.’
Status Labs in Austin is one of the most successful reputation management companies in the industry and has worked with a variety of clients, including college professors, politicians, and hedge fund managers
The Journal recounted the case of one recent Status client, Jacob Gottlieb, to see how the service works.
A hedge fund manager in New York, Gottlieb was worried that a number of controversies surrounding his former employer, Visium Asset Management LP, would make it hard for him to find investors for a new company.
In 2017, a former co-worker at Visium was had been convicted of securities fraud, and a year earlier another had committed suicide after being indicted for insider trading.
That same year, Gottlieb had gone through a divorce that was covered unfavorably in the New York Post.
His ex-wife had been given a $1.4million settlement in accordance with a prenuptial agreement, a sum that the presiding judge, David Saxe, described as a ‘hard bargain’ relative to Gottlieb’s reported $188million net worth.
Jacob Gottlieb (pictured above) worked with Status Labs to help improve his online search results after a former employer went through several public scandals and his divorce became a news item in the New York Post
‘Mr. Gottlieb indicated to his fiancée that he was not prepared to be generous with her in any way,’ Saxe said during a hearing, remarking on the prenuptial agreement.
Gottlieb said the press coverage was unfair and he reached out to Status Labs to help him turn his Google search results more in his favor.
According to the Journal, the company created a wide range of stories and news items to tip Google’s search algorithms back in his favor.
One such article was published on a site called the Medical Daily Times, which cited Gottlieb as a prominent donor to a scholarship program that helps NYU students pay for medical school.
At first glance, the website seems like a small but legitimate blog, but upon closer inspection there are frequently erratic lengths of time between story publication dates, and the site’s contact information lists a phone number that goes to a Toronto pizzeria.
Gottlieb had worried negative stories about his former emplyer’s business practices were unfair and might make it harder to attract investors for a new business venture
For the help improving his online reputation with a number of similar positive yet untraceable stories, Gottlieb reportedly paid Status between $4,000 and $5,000 a month.
He insists it had no impact on business dealings but says it did help his social life.
‘Obviously nobody invests in a hedge fund…based on an article in a no-name online blog,” he told the Journal in a statement.
It did, however, ‘improved my reception on Tinder.’
Google eventually removed the several of the sites that had posted positive stories about Gottlieb after being contacted by the Journal.
“Any efforts to enhance someone’s online presence shouldn’t involve deceptive tactics aimed at influencing Google Search rankings,” the company said in a statement.
WHAT IS INSTAGRAM DOING TO CRACK DOWN ON FAKE ACCOUNTS?
Instagram has launched a crackdown on fake accounts, introducing a new feature showing users information about who is really behind a username.
The Photo-sharing app’ more than 1 billion users will now be able to evaluate the authenticity of accounts, weeks after parent Facebook rolled out similar measures in a bid to weed out fake accounts on its social media platform.
The ‘About This Account’ feature will allow users to see the advertisements an account is running, the country where the account is located, username changes in the past year as well as other details.
To learn more about an account, go to their Profile, tap the … menu and then select ‘About This Account.’
There, you will see the date the account joined Instagram, the country where the account is located, accounts with shared followers, any username changes in the last year and any ads the account is currently running.
Instagram also plans to significantly boost the number of verified accounts for public figures, celebrities, and global brands.
Along with the account username, applicants will need to provide full real names and a copy of legal or business identification.
Instagram also said it will allow the use of third-party apps such as DUO Mobile and Google Authenticator for two-factor authentication to help users securely log in to their accounts.
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