A recent survey of its customers conducted by IT Security Expert Avira and Ruflotse, a leading online supplier for privacy and reputation protection, found that an almost equal number of respondents claim no negative information exists about them on the Internet while the other half has no idea if damaging info exists and doesn’t keep tabs on their online reputation.
A survey question was presented to Avira’s 100 million customers worldwide during May, 2011: Be honest; is there any unpleasant or potentially damaging information about you on the Internet?
A) 40% – No, there is no negative information about me on the Internet.
B) 36% – No idea, I’ve never monitored whether anything bad about me exists.
C) 15% – Yes, unfortunately. If I knew how to do it, I would delete the information right away.
D) 6% – Yes, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t bother me.
E) 4% – Not any longer – I erased all the information.
- 1,555 respondents with a margin of error of +/- 2.49 percent.
“This survey highlighted the two main groups of Internet users: those that care about their online reputation and those that don’t bother to keep track,” said Travis Witteveen, COO Market & Operations from Avira. “It’s critical to know what information exists about you online because if it’s negative it can damage your reputation, and not knowing isn’t much of an excuse in this generation of instant information.”
Avira and Ruflotse offer these tips to stay safe online:
1. Personal Information: Less is best! – Do not make all information about you available online or on any social media site such as address, city, telephone, friends, preferences, relatives, etc. If this information is freely available then someone, with a little luck, could theoretically impersonate you even on most secure websites since the questions asked to retrieve a password are usually related to this type of information.
2. Passwords
a. Don’t use the same password on all the social networking websites.
b. Do not use the same password for your email address and a website or instant messenger solution.
c. Never keep emails containing passwords in your email account folders since if your email account is compromised, then those other accounts will be easy pickings.
The company suggests using a product such as Ruflose to monitor your account. Other reputation management products are available. TechMedia’s Internet focused conferences also deal with reputation management issues. A frequent guest is Andy Beal, who is an expert on reputation management and has written a book about it.
One thing we hear over and over from reputation management professionals is that if they are talking about you online, you need to know about it first to be able to do anything about it, so monitoring is an essential first step.
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Tags: Andy Beal, Avira, monitor your online reputation, protect your online reputation, reputation managment, Ruflotse, survey
