Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier

spreading truthful positive content is a popular response to online

attack.

Iceberg content—False negative information about you online that is

not very visible in search engines today. Much like an iceberg, it can

still sink your reputation if it later rises up to the surface.

Instant universality—The power of the Internet to broadcast infor-

mation to the world in tenths of a second or less.

Libel index—A way to measure the harm caused by false negative

content. Roughly speaking, the harm caused by false negative content

is proportional to the size of the audience that sees it, multiplied by

the closeness of that audience to you.

Name collision—What happens when two people share the same

name and one suffers from the other’s negative online image.

Online Justice Squad—A satirical name for any group of self-proclaimed

vigilantes who set out to punish apparent transgressions.

Online résumé—The first blast of content that will be seen by anybody

searching for your name online. Your online résumé is your online first

impression (and often your only first impression).

Recovery road map—Like a reputation road map, but targeted at re-

covering from an online attack.

Reputation audit—A structured investigation of how your reputation

appears to a Web searcher today.

Reputation road map—A plan of action to improve your online

image.

Total online profile—The sum total of all online content about you

that could be found by the most dedicated Web searcher.

Wikipedia—A free community-edited encyclopedia that stores more

human knowledge than any book ever written.

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