You need to proactively protect your online reputation. On the
rough and tumble digital frontier, law enforcement can’t protect you
from malicious attacks, and good intentions can’t protect you from
computer errors or “the machine” spinning out of control. Active self-
defense is the only way to protect your online reputation from acci-
dental damage and malicious attacks.
An analogy may explain why it is necessary to proactively protect
yourself against reputation damage. In the physical world, many people
take precautions to protect themselves from physical attacks—by
locking their doors or installing burglar alarms, for example. And
many people also take precautions to protect themselves from acci-
dental physical damage—they buy insurance on their cars and carefully
Getting Proactive:
The Best Defense Is
a Good Offense
188
CHAPTER
189Getting Proactive: The Best Defense Is a Good Offense
protect their valuables. Your online reputation can be just as valuable as
your most expensive possession, but there is no way to buy the same
kind of insurance for it. And, on the frontiers of the digital Wild West,
law enforcement often cannot protect you from harm. The best thing
you can do is to protect yourself by carefully claiming your identity and
building a shield against false and malicious content. We call this
process building “Google insurance”—by investing today in positive on-
line content, you can insure yourself against the harmful effects of neg-
ative or false online content in the future.
The amount and depth of further proactive management you do
will depend on your goals. If you want to be well known online, it will
be critical for you to work to make sure that positive information
about you can easily be found, in addition to claiming your identity
and establishing defenses. If, however, all you want is digital peace and
quiet, you can do your best to make that happen by claiming your
identity and setting up active defenses to help guard against attack.
Claim Your Online Identity
Somebody is going to claim your online identity.
It might as well be you.
—THE AUTHORS
No matter who you are and what you do, you need to claim your on-
line identity today (see Figure 11-1). Claiming your online identity
helps to protect you from online impersonation and serves as the first
line of defense against online attack. Your online identity is made up
of all the online content that appears to belong to you or come from
you. For example, your profile on a social networking site is part of
your online identity because it appears that you control it. A blog that
appears to be written by you is also part of your online identity be-
cause it looks like content that you created. To claim your online iden-
tity, you simply need to take control of websites and usernames that
appear to be related to you. You do not need to reveal any information
about yourself or create any content; you simply need to claim iden-
tities, URLs, and usernames that refer to you by name.
Claiming your online identity helps to protect you from online
impersonation. Many websites do very little (or nothing at all) to
protect against online impersonation; most websites do not verify
that people are who they claim to be. As a result, anybody could set
up a fake blog under your name, create a fake social networking pro-
file with your photo, or even register a domain in your name. People
visiting these sites would see your name on them but have no way to
know that it is not really you. Some sites might provide a means for
you to complain after you have already been impersonated, but by then
Figure 11-1. What Is Online Identity?
Assume that you are Bill Gates, the CEO of the software manufacturer Microsoft Corp. These are possible
examples of your online identity:
• Web sites
• A website at billgates.com, williamgates.com, or similar
• A website at MicrosoftCEO.com or even MicroCEO.com
• Communications media
• A blog at billgates.blogspot.com or billgates.livejournal.com
• A blog at MicrosoftCEO.blogspot.com or MicroCEO.livejournal.com
• A Twitter microblog at BillGates.twitter.com
• A Twitter microblog at MicrosoftCEO.twitter.com
• Social media
• A Facebook account claiming to be “Bill Gates”
• A MySpace account under the username “billgates”
• A LinkedIn account claiming to be “Bill Gates”
• Search media
• A Google Profile under the username “billgates” or listed under the name “Bill Gates”
190 Wild West 2.0
191Getting Proactive: The Best Defense Is a Good Offense
it is already too late—you will be stuck pleading with customer service
for days or weeks while the impersonator damages your good name.
Impersonation is one of the most dangerous threats because it is
often very believable and often causes results that appear very high
on the list of results in Google and other search engines. By claiming
your online identity, you can make it harder for other people to im-
personate you: they will simply lack the tools they need to convinc-
ingly pretend to be you. You will also be able to more easily rebut any
attempts at impersonation by establishing your own credible online
identity; if you already have an online identity, many people will not
believe an obvious fake, and you will be able to use your existing on-
line identity to debunk rumors that come from the impersonator.
Claiming your online identity is also the first step toward de-
fending against many other forms of online reputation damage. If
you are ever attacked, you will be able to use your ownership of your
online identity to help clean up your online résumé and to help im-
prove your total online profile. Websites that make up your online
identity are often very visible in search results and can be used to
push aside false or misleading content. Being proactive now—before
there is a problem—makes your defenses even more powerful be-
cause Google (and many other search engines) often take a long time
to update: if you claim your online identity now, Google will be
aware of it when you need to use it. If you wait until you are already
under attack, then you may have to wait days (or even weeks) for
search engines to discover your content.
How to Claim Your Online Identity
Claiming your online identity is simple in concept but somewhat
time-consuming in execution. The goal is to make sure that you con-
trol your name on popular websites, mainly by claiming usernames,
URLs, and identities as a placeholder against misuse and as a first for-
tification against attack. You do not need to upload any content today
192 Wild West 2.0
or say anything more than you want to. If you ever are attacked, then
you will then be able to activate these websites to help in your de-
fenses. Be sure to write down your usernames and passwords for
these sites in a secure place, or use a service like NameGrab.com that
keeps track of social usernames for you.
Types of Web Sites
There are two relevant kinds of websites in your effort to protect your
identity. Many social sites identify users by their full names. On these
sites, many people can share the same name. Your goal is to claim your
name today so that you will have an established profile in case of fu-
ture attack. Many other sites identify users by a username or pseu-
donym (like “appleCEO1” or “superbloggirl”). Only one person can
use a username. On these sites, you want to claim usernames that re-
semble your name so that other people can’t use them and so that you
can use them to your advantage in improving your online résumé.
Real-Name Sites
On many social networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn,—
users are identified primarily by their full names. Users might
choose a “username” when registering or logging in, but their user-
name is not displayed prominently. On these sites, you want to cre-
ate an identity so that you can establish that your true identity was
there first—and claim your space before somebody else with the
same name does! And, establishing an identity early may help make
a profile more visible in a search engine if you ever need it.
Here are some sites that you should consider:
? Facebook. Facebook is the “granddaddy” of personal social
networking. It is the largest and most popular social networking site,
with millions of active users. Set up a profile under your full name on
Facebook, even if you do not want to use any of the social network-
ing features. This sounds counterintuitive in some ways, but it will
allow you to be prepared in case you ever need to use it. You do not
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