Before beginning, I would like to state that I am genetically and habitually predisposed to rampant bouts of paranoia, so it’s possible that even with a small dose of information I can blow things entirely out of proportion.

With that over with, I will tell a short story. While packing my computer cables and paraphernalia, I was watching a local TV station. After doing a little bit of research, I believe that it was 20/20, but I may be wrong. [Edit: I wasn't wrong! Here's the story that aired.] Much flipping was involved, in an attempt to escape a local news story about a woman burying her dead fetus. (Yes, isn’t Memphis lovely?) The story eventually touched on an interesting subject, and I started watching closely enough to pick up that there is a private company out there (Reputation Defender), that will keep an eye on what people are saying about you online and… for a fee… attempt to bury those negative remarks with positively-phrased comments, etc. One of their examples was a woman named Sue Scheff. Since I had my laptop out already, the internet was working, and her name’s alliteration piqued my interest, I immediately Googled her.

This is what I came across. It’s very detailed, and I’m afraid that after reading through some of it I noticed a particular bent that gave me a feeling of deja vu. Here’s a short synopsis:

What the story boils down to is this. Sue Scheff is a founder of PURE (Parents Universal Resource Experts). On 20/20 it sounded very pleasant, a business that is meant to help parents find the best places to send their troubled teens. After reading some of this other site, however, I found that it’s not entirely what it seems when described in under twenty words on a news program by someone who feels like a victim. It appears that it is common for consultants like Sue to both accept money from institutions they recommend to parents and, in some cases, ask for a fee when looking for an institution for a particular client. This is all well and good, except it seems that they also tend not to investigate these institutions as well as one should.

Now, I’m not wasting my time enough to investigate if any of those vague and general accusations are accurate. This is not what concerns me. (Well, it does, but only in the same way that a nameless homeless person concerns me.) What concerns me is why Sue would need to hire Reputation Defender. What would make someone who is the head of a company like PURE need to hire a private company to pore through the internet (doing many complicated Google searches, I’m sure) and bury negative content about her? Why would anyone want to make negative comments about her?

Without going into too much detail, this is the skinny: There was a big mess about personal information being leaked onto the web. Some parents who were clients of Sue’s either found out (if it the allegation is true) or thought that the information concerning their family and home had been unethically leaked to third parties. They, understandably, were very upset. This led to a vast amount of derogatory comments at a site called Fornits. I read through some of them, and while they’re certainly not pleasant, I’ve seen worse. Sue herself described some of these comments on 20/20, and the interviewer went on to describe the internet as some form of “People’s Court” where any individual could go and make a few posts or comments about any other individual and possibly ruin their reputation. I agree that the speed with which people can communicate on the internet is somewhat overwhelming. One mistake, say a newscaster doing something potentially embarrassing like picking his nose on live television, could eventually make its way to YouTube and hurt or destroy his career. No one really wants that infamy. At least, I don’t.

What upsets me about this is that the internet provider for Fornits, GoDaddy, was contacted by Sue or someone in her stead and made aware of the derogatory comments made on a site they provided services for. This eventually lead, after an e-mail from GoDaddy, to the removal of Fornits from this country to Canada, and the “removal” of the questionable content to the site I found on my one and only Google search of Sue Scheff’s name.

I would like to leave you with three thoughts:

1) It bothers me greatly that Sue Scheff felt it was necessary to contact Reputation Defender at all. The comments made at Fornits were disgusting at times, but her actions reek of guilt. Whey defend yourself if you really are such a good person? Maybe I’m not equipped to understand this kind of situation, as no one has said such things about me… that I know of… yet.

2) What bothers me even more is that GoDaddy did not stand by their client, Fornits. They buckled. And this is really where the rub lies. Every time I read about how the internet provider was contacted about the content on the site, I kept thinking of LiveJournal/Six Apart. Where does the censorship end? Will I eventually be forced with the possibility of having to move to Canada if I want to write freely on a website? Or will I have to start a web server of my own? (Only slightly joking…)

3) Ironically enough, as I mentioned above, all of this was found after only one silly little Google search. So, I suppose despite all of Sue’s attempts to cover this information up, it’s still readily available to any monkey with an internet connection.

[Edit 1: Here are some tips to know whether a company like Reputation Defender is affecting your search results on a site like Google: 1) If all or most of the results have similar domain names. For example, you may find the following: www.someone'sname.com, www.someone'sname.org, and www.someone'sname.net. 2) If these results at least take up the entire first page of your search results. This is their goal, to stop the lazy (those who wont go past the first page of results) from seeing the negative websites. 3) If you see other sites listed, like Myspace and www.naymz.com. These search results and the ones mentioned in #1 are all created by the private company hired (like Reputation Defender), in order to affect the search results you get when you type in their client's name.

So a word to the wise: If you notice these trends, dig a little deeper or try a different search engine. Instead of only getting white-washed sites that were created to mislead the public, you might find some interesting tidbits. ]

[Edit 2: It also appears that Sue has been spamming WordPress. This is so depressing. I need a drink... ]