Come and get me, Reputation.com!

Here's another "service" I wish I had come up with. As near as I can tell, it promises to seek out negative reviews on the internet and surgically remove them, leaving nothing but praise, rainbows, puppies and unicorns behind. Well, why not? Anyone who expects anything approaching accuracy on the web probably deserves what he gets.

This "service" removes "malicious reviews" like "I had a bad experience" and "slander" like "he's arrogant." Wow, I hope nobody tries to comment on the quality of this doctor's waiting room magazines- he'd probably find himself up on charges.

It's not mentioned explicitly, but I imagine that Reputation.com must promise to be constantly at war with sites like Angie's List, which are clearing houses for nitpicking, peevish, "the monkey I hired didn't jump quite high enough," potentially career-gutting reviews. (I can imagine the woman who's "favorite plumber" agreed to walk her Pekinese around the block until "her business has been taken care of" is quick to post nasty screeds against the electrician who refused to do that pile of dirty dishes on his own time.) Or that company which claims to provide instant background checks (Verified.com) on everyone you've ever met.

What is never explained is how this "service" goes about weeding out the truly malicious, FALSE posts and leaving the perfectly accurate- but negative- comments intact. Do we really think that the good people at Reputation.com respond to "malicious" posts by tracking down and interviewing the poster, then fact-checking with the subject of the post, to determine it's accuracy? Hardly. In fact, it's strongly implied that Reputation.com sees it's job as removing any mention of the customer that doesn't praise his ability to walk on water.

So "Reputation.com" is probably not the most accurate name for this "service," which seems dedicated to nothing short of removing anything that is not a glowing review from the internet. (Maybe "Whitewash.com" would be better?) And now that I've typed this, I'll sit back and see how successful the company is in removing this bad review from the web.