ReputationDefender.com

"You can't take it back" was the basic message when I wrote about "Protecting teen reputations [and future prospects] on Web 2.0" last spring - because once you've uploaded text, photos, videos, etc. to the Web, you've pretty much lost control of that content. People can cut and paste it into a Web page, an instant message, or an email or share it via the global file-sharing networks. That's still true, but now there's [i]some[/i] help. "A new startup, ReputationDefender.com, will act on your behalf by contacting data hosting services and requesting the removal of any materials that threaten your good social standing," Wired News reports. For $10 to $16 a month, "we scour the Internet to dig up every possible piece of information by and about your child [in social sites, media-sharing sites, online game sites, and on "the open Internet"], and we present it to you in an interactive monthly report," says ReputationDefender.com. If there's something embarrassing or damaging in the report, you can flag it and, for an additional $30, the service will "use an array of proprietary techniques developed in-house to correct and/or completely remove the selected unwanted content from the Web." If they can, that is. If the offending info is on the Web page of an ex-friend of your child or a bully, the service may not be able to deliver on that promise. If you're interested in trying the service, be sure to talk with them about that. In any case, knowing where and how our kids are represented online is a good thing; it can be a great parent-child discussion point to have a "visual aid" – with the help of monitoring tools and services like this, BeNetSafe, and others (see "Monitoring MySpacers").

As for future prospects, a recent Harris Interactive study found that "more than one-fourth of hiring managers said they had used Internet search engines to research potential employees," and 10% said they'd searched social sites to screen applicants, according to a story on this in the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., where ReputationDefender is based. KIRO in Seattle reported findings from a similar study conducted at Seattle University. See also "For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Resume" in the New York Times last June.