Education Week has a nice article that looks at the ethical dilemmas facing students in the digital age. The article profiles Howard Gardner and a team of researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who are looking at how social media is creating new challenges for teenagers. Quoting from the page:

It’s a familiar scenario: A teenager snaps a picture of underage classmates drinking alcohol at a party. The photos go up on a social-networking Web site and land on the desk of an athletic coach or a school administrator. The students pictured are suspended from school or booted off their teams.

Researchers here at the Harvard Graduate School of Education say stories like that one illustrate one of the ways new digital media are raising distinct ethical challenges and temptations for young people today.

“Even though many young people may not be ready to participate in the wider communities that digital media open up to them, there is no controlling information about yourself or others that gets posted,” said Howard Gardner, the project’s co-director.

Alert readers will see a familiar pattern here. This scenario sounds like the Teacher who was fired for her MySpace photo or the bloggers who were fired for posting about their jobs online. The fact that Harvard minds are researching this new phenomenon means that it is a new ethical reality for students in the internet era. Reputation.com is the leader for protecting your online reputation.

In a recent article Computerworld magazine waded into the world of online reputation management to see what all the hubbub is about. Reputation.com’s CEO Michael Fertik is sourced extensively throughout the article, and provides expert commentary on Online Reputation Management. Computerworld’s approach is good for their readers; it introduces ORM to a broader audience and looks at the realities of dealing with our digital dirt in a wired society. The magazine set up a simple test of three items to be removed and then graded their progress. From the article, the three items they threw into the Internet and then tried to haul back out were:

• A recent college graduate with a distinctive last name would like to get rid of an entry on someone else’s long-abandoned online journal. 

• A freelance writer is mistakenly identified as a movie critic on Rotten Tomatoes, a popular site that aggregates movie reviews from print, TV and the Web. 

• In an interview seven years ago, an IT professional gave a quote to Computerworld that included a salty phrase.

None of these items is particularly salacious, save potentially the first, and they are not uncommon problems for the average web user to encounter. What’s more interesting is the process that Computerworld has to go through for each individual item and the mixed bag of results they end up with.

The article is a good read for those new to Online Reputation Management, and for those curious about the steps necessary to even begin trying to restore, maintain or establish an online identity.  Reputation.com has a variety of services and products to help you maintain your good reputation online.

In the four years that Google has operated offices in Europe (major offices in Dublin, Zurich and London, with smaller centers in Denmark, Russia and Poland, among other countries) it has found itself increasingly at odds with the privacy laws of our European brethren.

For instance, in Switzerland, where Google has 450 employees working in a seven-story converted brewery, data protection officials have requested that Google do away with a plan to introduce Street View’s 360-degree, ground-level photographic images. The reason being that Swiss privacy laws forbid the unauthorized use of personal images or property. To give you another example, in Germany if Street View even wanted to take a photograph for the service it would be violating existing privacy laws. So far, Street View extends only to major cities in France, Spain and Italy.

But Europe is upset with the Big G for more than a few purloined private moments via camera. The European Commission in Brussels is questioning how long user logs are retained, and a EU regulatory panel wants Google, along with other search engines, to eradicate their logs after six months. Google has responded that it needs data for the better part of year in order to accurately contextualize news and other popular events for the best search results. The 9-month stance (does that mean Google gives birth to a little data baby?) is a step down from the previous 18-month position they had held.

Still, Google has a way to go before winning over the Continentals. Kiel, a city located on the German Baltic Sea coast, has advised the search engine that its Street View cameras are not welcome, and the company will be assessed fines if it attempts to take pictures there. The city of over 200,000 residents has even gone so far as to distribute stickers for homeowners to place in their windows that warn Google against taking a photograph of their property.

“What Google is doing with Street View violates German law,” said Marit Hansen, deputy director of the Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz in Schleswig-Holstein, the state in which Kiel is located. “It’s not enough that Google’s Street View is not yet available in Germany. The simple photographing is in itself a violation.”

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Reputation.com Blog caught a compelling article from CNN yesterday reexamining the story of former Army machine gunner Colby Buzzell. Buzzell, who was deployed to Iraq in November of 2003, began blogging about his war experiences anonymously to share with the world the reality of the war.

Buzzell’s candid style and frank language was compelling and his first-hand experiences were shared unfiltered for anyone to see. Unlike traditional media, Buzzel’s blog provided a fully accurate view of the brutality and severity of combat. Whereas a nightly newscast might mention a firefight, Buzzel could actually desribe it with detail.

Because of their intense nature, it wasn’t long before Buzzel’s posts began receiving mainstream attention. Buzzel’s gripping first-person account of an ambush on American troops in Mosul, in particular received siginificant exposure. Unfortunately, it was this same post which drew the ire of his superiors.

From the CNN Article:

The “Men in Black” post attracted media attention, and Buzzell was flooded with e-mails and interview requests from around the world. Based on his descriptions of the Mosul attacks, his commanding officers soon figured out that he was the blog’s author.

The Army confined Buzzell to the base and began monitoring his posts. Then, after he posted an anti-Iraq war rant by Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra, they ordered him to stop blogging.

Buzzell’s Iraq blog lasted just 10 weeks, but it helped pave the way for others to follow.

While the story goes on to explain that the Army’s official policy toward blogging is positive, they encourage soldiers to express themselves, it is interesting to see another example of a blog leading to punitive action. While it is understandable that the army would monitor a soldier’s blog for the sake of mission security, it still provides a compelling refutation of the “anonymity” of the web.

While Colby Buzzell was able to turn his blog into a book and a freelance writing career, others haven’t been as lucky. Just because you don’t sign your name to a blog or a forum, it doesn’t mean others won’t still be able to figure out who you are. This is why taking an active stance in the management of your online reputation is critical to success in the Internet era.

Wanted: Good men and women to serve as a part of a historic Presidential administrative team. Must be a team player and able to handle pressure. Familiarity with deadlines essential, complex screening process applies. Equal Opportunity Employer.

On the heels of the Obama campaign being swept into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue there have been a lot of job slots opening up. Some are newly created, others are being vacated as the Bush administration heads out and Obama moves in. In both cases bodies are needed to fill the seats. But not just any bodies. Barack Obama is very aware of the Internet and how it can help and hinder a cause. Given this, it should come as no surprise to anyone that he is being VERY thorough about who gets a spot on the “O” team.

The process begins with a seven-page questionnaire that has been sent by the office of the President-elect to those seeking cabinet and other high-ranking posts. The New York Times has commented that this process may be the most extensive (“some say invasive”) application ever.

And just what does those questions cover? 63 requests for personal and professional records, for starters, covering the applicants’ spouses and grown children as well. Good luck for speeders (sort of): traffic tickets with fines of less than $50 do not need not be reported, but anyone with a family member in the NRA take note, the application asks whether the applicant or anyone in their family owns a firearm.

While all of this is interesting from a political standpoint, what really caught our eye was the provision that all applicants must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages. As we have noted before on this blog, Obama is the Internet President, and he is covering his digital bases. The application goes on further to ask for applicants to “list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet.”

Of course the competition for a job in the White House has always been high, even if you weren’t gunning for Commander-In-Chief. The vetting process has been modified and added on to with each incoming administration, but Mr. Obama has taken his background hunts to a new level, especially with regards to applicants’ family members. The Obama camp stands behind their process, though, stating “President-elect Obama made a commitment to change the way Washington does business, and the vetting process exemplifies that.”

With the economy large in many Americans’ minds, the Obama campaign has sought to minimize any potential red flags in their hiring by avoiding hot topics like Freddie Mac and Fannie May. Question 18 of the Obama application asks the applicant whether “you, your spouse or any member of your immediate family” has been affiliated with either of the two failed mortgage institutions, as well as American International Group, Washington Mutual or any other institution getting a piece of the government bailout.

Remembering the trouble that Bill Clinton got into back in the early 90s, immigration status is questioned in the “Domestic Help” section that covers housekeepers, nannies, chauffeurs and yard-workers. Beyond that, applicants are requested to supply not only a résumé, but every résumé and biographical statement they’ve used in the last decade.

Oh yeah, and while you’re at it, the application requires the names of anyone an applicant has lived with, a chronological list of activities for which they were paid, documentation of real estate and loans over $10,000, and net worth statements submitted for loans. Furthermore, applicants must report all businesses that they and/or their spouses have been affiliated with and all gifts over $50 that they and their spouses have received from anyone other than close friends or relatives.

The catch all, though is at the end: “Please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect.”

The message is clear. While Barack Obama understood the power of the internet to raise money and spread his message of change, he is also aware of how the internet can adversely affect people in the digital age.