Reputation.com was founded with the belief that businesses and individuals have the right to control and protect their online reputations and privacy. To this end, we have worked diligently over the last five years on developing the world’s most powerful collection of online reputation management and Internet privacy tools.

But no product, no matter how powerful or innovative, can help customers unless it comes with the hard work and support of a dedicated customer service team. That’s why Reputation.com has taken great pains to hire only the best customer service professionals — individuals who not only care deeply about their customers, but who are also highly fluent in Web technology and reputation and privacy issues.

Today, we are proud to announce that through their dedication and professionalism, Reputation.com’s member services team has earned the Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year from the American Business Association. Reputation.com won the Stevie Award in the “All Services” category, beating out numerous fine companies, including Empire Today, LifeLock, Marriott Intermediary Partner Care,
PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants, The Knowland Group, TheLadders.com, and USANA Health Sciences, Inc.

While this award is a tremendous validation of our member services team’s commitment and skill, and we are proud of them for their fine work, we also recognize that there is always more to do. As the Internet continues to bubble and change, bringing privacy and reputation issues further and further to the forefront, all of us here at Reputation.com are focused on delivering the best possible service and solutions possible today, tomorrow, and in the future.

[Image via Flickr]

As the world’s leader in online reputation management and personal privacy services, Reputation.com is frequently asked to participate in leading academic conferences on the issues. This evening, Noah Lang will proudly represent Reputation.com as a guest at the 2011 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference in Washington, D.C.

Entitled “The Privacy Tipping Point?”, Noah’s panel will explore issues of personal privacy amid rapid technological and commercial changes. For more information on the event, check out a detailed panel description below.

To follow CFP2011 on Twitter, track the hashtag #cfp2011.

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The Privacy Tipping Point?

Thursday, June 16, 2011; 4:45 PM – 5:45 PM

As the Orwellian real-time data tracking and auctioning off of individuals is adopted throughout the world, including in repressive regimes, are we witnessing the creation of a combined political and commercial surveillance society? U.S.-based companies and technologies are transforming the global digital marketplace, including through the development of far-reaching approaches designed to integrate advanced data collection techniques with applications that influence unconscious behavior. All the leading digital marketing companies and many global advertisers, for example, are using forms of neuromarketing designed to bypass conscious decision-making, including Yahoo, Google and Microsoft. U.S. companies are also in the forefront of exporting technologies and a business model–known as real-time bidding–where users are bought and sold in milliseconds. Such practices are now found in both the EU and in Asia, including in regimes with human rights violations. Online marketers throughout the world propose a largely uniform approach to ensuring privacy safeguards for such practices–principally self-regulation. There are also new possibilities for the personal management of data profiles proposed to address such concerns. This panel will explore the latest developments in technologically advanced personalized data targeting, the role of the leading online marketing companies, new approaches to policy and safeguard development, and implications to the future of democracy and human rights.

Moderator:

Cecilia Kang: Washington Post

Panelists:

Jeff Chester: Center for Digital Democracy
Fran Maier: TRUSTe
Cédric Laurant: Cedric Laurant Consulting
Noah Lang: Reputation.com
Tamir Israel: Technology Lawyer, CIPPIC
Scott B. Meyer: CEO, Evidon

It’s graduation season, which means thousands of bright-eyed and eager students from across the country are getting ready to enter the job market. But before they start sending out resumes and cover letters, most college grads would be wise to check their online reputation as well.

The economy is still recovering, which means that there are a lot of qualified job applicants for every available job. If there’s something negative on your Google results, it could be a red flag for a hiring manager that they need to find someone else for the position.

To help new grads understand the importance of their online reputations, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik recently appeared as a guest on a special NBC San Diego segment with consumer advocate Bob Hansen. Check out the segment below to learn why ORM matters and what you can do to help promote a positive reputation online. For more ORM advice, check out the Reputation.com Resource Center.

Last year, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik attended the first annual Privacy Identity Innovation Conference in Seattle. Since then, the issue of online privacy has exploded in the public eye, leading to a wide range of new privacy proposals from Congress.

This year, Reputation.com will again have a presence at PII to talk about privacy issues and where we stand as a country on personal data protection. At PII 2011, the focus is “Building Trust in a Digital Age.” Privacy and policy experts from across the technology spectrum will discuss how ethical and commercial interests intersect in the emergence of increasingly sophisticated digital technology.

Reputation.com COO Owen Tripp and CEO Michael Fertik will both be in attendance during the conference. If you’re attending PII 2011, keep on reading to learn when and where you can see Owen and Michael.

Reputation.com COO Owen Tripp will appear on a panel during a pre-conference reception at 6:00pm  on May 18th.

Pre-conference reception and Insight Dinner Salon – Co-hosted with Techdirt

The topic for the Dinner Salon is Privacy in a Data-driven Economy: When Your Customers Are Your Product

Facilitators include Esther Dyson of EDventure Holdings, Tara Hunt of Buyosphere, Berin Szoka of TechFreedom, Colin O’Malley of Evidon, Jim Brock of PrivacyChoice, Owen Tripp of Reputation.com and Julia Angwin of The Wall Street Journal.

The following day, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik will appear in a 9:00 AM panel entitled “Privacy, Personal Data and Publicness: Where Are We Heading?”

Privacy, Personal Data and Publicness: Where Are We Heading?

Julia Angwin, The Wall Street Journal (Session Host)
Marc Davis, Partner Architect at Microsoft
Larry Downes, Senior Adjunct Fellow at TechFreedom
Michael Fertik, Founder and CEO of Reputation.com
Chris Kelly, Founder of Kelly Investments and Former Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook

If you’re not attending PII 2011, but still want to keep up on the all the latest news on privacy, follow insights from the convention using the #pii2011 hashtag on Twitter. You can also follow Owen and Michael directly via Twitter at @OwenTripp and @MichaelFertik.

Reputation.com founder and CEO Michael Fertik will appear as a guest tonight on the FOX Business show Stossel, with host John Stossel, for a special segment on Internet privacy legislation.

During the segment, Fertik will talk about pending privacy legislation in Washington D.C. and debate the merits of a Do Not Track law with Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The show airs tonight on FOX Business at 10:00pm EST/7:00pm PST. If you can’t catch it tonight, check back to the Reputation.com YouTube channel, where we will post it soon after the segment airs.