5 ms·
A not-so-secret dirty little secret is that many of the reputation management agencies also own many of the public records websites that publish mug shots, cour
by SteveGerencser 3y ago
A not-so-secret dirty little secret is that many of the reputation management agencies also own many of the public records websites that publish mug shots, court records, and so on. When you hire them to remove that information from the internet it puts you into a cycle of being removed from one or two of their website and added to something else.
You end up in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Complete with monthly fees.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- greggsy 3y agoIt’s racketeering
- walterbell 3y agoFrom "The Sopranos", Patsy and Burt failed extortion attempt at "Starbucks", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
- dylan604 3y agoI always loved that scene. The times, they are a-changin
- Arrath 3y agoWatch these vultures frame it as clever vertical integration. They control the supply (the sites with your info) and the demand (the sites you can go through to request it get taken down) /s, obviously
- maximinus_thrax 3y agoIt's been going on for years https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/12/mugshot-exploitation-websites-arrests-shame https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/12/mugshot-e...
- m463 3y agothis seems to fit the definition. In many cases, the potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, but that fact may be concealed, with the intent to engender continual patronage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering
- throwaway2474 3y agoSee also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldcoin
- andirk 3y agoLol those orbs! Oddly, Worldcoin's main exchange is Binance which stopped doing business in USA so I couldn't get a bag. Up almost 10x. Not bad for a sphere that proves "personhood". With AI making actual people vs machine created more difficult to discern, it may have evermore applications.
- _factor 3y agoRelated, proofpoint is notorious for this as well. They will block your mail server without cause, forcing you through their process of delisting. Pay and your problems magically go away. Proofpoint was consistently the only block hit.
- calvinmorrison 3y agoTbf putting up cash is a great signal for 'not a spammer'.
- _factor 3y agoTrue, but not the only method. You’d be surprised how many spammers drop with greylisting enabled.
- tedajax 3y agoNot really it's just a cost of doing business and if paying that cost "legitimizes" you then the ROI is probably significant.
- _factor 3y agoSimilar to a mafia coming to your small business and telling you you need to pay to stay open, otherwise they’ll make sure you. Still just the cost of business? Seems more like a power imbalance.
- endofreach 3y agoThat's what elon thought & got hate for.
- patcon 3y agoIsn't this just a white-hat/black-hat hacker dynamic, except in this case the latter is legal?
- ironmagma 3y agoWell, both hats ostensibly are at least doing real work (finding vulnerabilities).
- ta234234234234 3y ago[flagged]
- rqtwteye 3y agoAs long as you make good money you will be a very respected member of society.
- vmfunction 3y agoThe lesson for the modern ago. Don't put stuff into digital form if you want privacy! Some places don't allow use of smart phone. They actually ask you check your phone into a coat check type thing at door! One journalist friend often leaves the smart phone at home.
- philjohn 3y agoMore theatre performances are doing this now. Cabaret at the Kit Kat club in London places a sticker over any camera lens. The Burnt City, an immersive theatrical experience, makes you place your phone in a pouch that is then sealed with a tamper evident fastening before you enter the venue.
- jojobas 3y agoThis lesson can't be bashed into children enough.
- noir_lord 3y agoNever did. It wasn't paranoia it was a healthy dose of "if this is possible, someone is doing it" Turned out they in fact were doing it.
- mrguyorama 3y agoMore like : If it is not explicitly illegal and aggressively enforced by someone, a business will attempt it, regardless of whether it makes money or not. Everything else is fair game apparently.
- sunnybeetroot 3y agoThis sets a terrible precedent. For most, a phone is all or a combination of; house keys, car keys, bank cards, medical records, photo albums, etc. Giving all that up to a stranger (albeit behind a passcode) is a step backwards in security and privacy. An alternative that I have witnessed is places place your phone in a lockable bag that you then carry with you. They unlock the bag when you exit.
- weedfire 3y ago[dead]
- sonicanatidae 3y agoThat sounds like credit bureaus. You know, those entities that hoover up any and all info on you, that you cannot opt out of, maintain information whether its accurate or not and refuse to delete obviously erroneous data, then release it *all* to the world by being extremely poor stewards of said data, then charging you for credit monitoring for the rest of your life, since your immutable info just got shared with assholes. Guess who owns most/all of the credit monitoring entities? Edit: typo...words are hard.
- ragestorm 3y agoLuckily you can mail them a permanent opt out for most of that stuff. IIRC, it removes your name from the searchable list of info 3rd parties use for marketing. Additionally, if you haven't, freeze your credit at all bureaus including LexisNexis.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoI've frozen all of mine, because thanks to Equifax, I don't have a choice. I wish you good luck opting out. I'm not talking about what the law says, I'm talking about how they act. Technically, you can dispute incorrect info. What that dispute amounts to is the bureau asking the entity if it's accurate. No proof needed. If they say it's accurate, then you're stuck with it, until you jump through many, many more hoops.
- SlightlyLeftPad 3y agoThis sounds awfully familiar, like the window repair guy breaking windows or the tire salesman dropping boxes of nails on the road. The only difference is both of those things are illegal. I guess we could say it’s the data privacy mafia.