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Website can keep eye on your digital footprint [Florida Times Union]
[August 22, 2014]

Website can keep eye on your digital footprint [Florida Times Union]


(Florida Times Union Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Facebook is 10 years old this year, and some adult users have been posting since they were teenagers. Over the course of 10 years, you might have accrued some posts that would be detrimental to your career, your college application, or your online dating profile. Those are just three of the reasons that Lior Tal and his partner founded RepNup.com, an online application designed to help you find and remove problematic social network posts.



Tal has a strong background in cyber security; his first company, Guardiem, protected data for large organizations and was acquired by IBM for $225 million. His second, Insightix, was acquired by McAfee in 2012 for more than $4 million. I spoke to him by phone to ask how he got interested in protecting personal data for individuals.

"I started RepNup with the idea of helping parents protect their children against cyberbullying, but most parents we talked to didn't think they needed the product. We couldn't get school districts interested, either. Finally, we put the product online to help individuals monitor and repair their online reputations. We launched about six months ago, and with no investment in advertising, we have built up to about 2,000 new users a month." Users allow RepNup access to Facebook, where the algorithm searches for posts with suspicious content: photos with alcohol, weapons or nudity, posts that contain profanity, violent thoughts or inappropriate comments about your job or boss. The model is a "freemium" model; your initial report is free, and points out potentially harmful content you've posted over the past two years. For $9.95, you'll get the full report, which provides direct links to the posts so you can easily find and delete them. Since the average Facebook user posts between 2,500 and 3,000 times a year, that process might take a user weeks to search and fix on his own.


Tal says that surveys show that 43 percent of recruiters have searched for job candidates on social networks before deciding whether or not to call them for an interview. Fifty percent of those who have searched social networks have decided against calling the job candidate in based on their online history. Universities are also screening applicants based on social network activity, and prudent people in the dating scene are doing the same. If you're in the market for a new job, acceptance to a competitive university, or newly single, you'd be wise to make sure your online reputation doesn't hurt your chances of success.

I asked two young college students (around 20 years old) to use the service. Both young women had been on Facebook for a couple of years, and both had been prudent in their online activities. One came back with a clean report, meaning that none of her posts were flagged. The other student was surprised to find that she had more than 50 alerts; five were considered "high priority." Most of the high priority items stemmed from vacation photos; she'd posted a photo of herself at the beach in a bikini and two with wine from a tour of a vineyard and her 21st birthday cruise. She'd posted the result of an online survey, which contained a word she might not have used in front of her grandmother. And there were several references to her Zumba class "kicking her butt." In the end, she wound up taking down just one post, but she validated her cautious approach to managing her digital footprint. Check your online profile at www.repnup.com.Candace Moody is vice president of communications for CareerSource Northeast Florida. She can be reached at [email protected].

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