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Google Gone Wild:
The Digital Threat
to Reputation
In an ideal world, anyone searching for information about you
would find a fair description of who you are and what you do, with-
out too much about your personal life being revealed to complete
strangers. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. Even with-
out any malicious attacks, thousands of reputations are ruined by
negligent mistakes, sloppy programming, bad luck, and the structure
of the Internet itself. These dangers manifest themselves many ways:
Google’s search algorithm unintentionally dredges up false informa-
tion and emphasizes negative information; blog authors negligently