Does This Mean That Irony Is Dead? Or That Irony Isn’t Dead? I Get Confused.

Guess what? “ReputationDefender” aggressively defends its own reputation! In response to this post, I received the following e-mail (which I also obtained explicit permission to post here):

Dear Prof. Bartow,
We were admittedly disturbed to read your recent blog posting regarding ReputationDefender. Although you do explicitly state you are not accusing ReputationDefender of posting on AutoAdmit, which we appreciate, we still are concerned that your comments might imply that representatives of ReputationDefender may have posted some of the disparaging remarks comments on AutoAdmit. We are hoping some additional information would help to address and alleviate some of your concerns, as well as those of your readers.

Please let us clearly state: ReputationDefender has never posted on AutoAdmit. (We would be happy to have you compare our IP addresses with those of AutoAdmit posters.) In this particular case, two of our clients have been harassed on AutoAdmit since 2005; ReputationDefender was launched in October 2006. We are representing the women maligned on AutoAdmit for nearly no fee, while investing countless hours and dollars in efforts on their behalf. Furthermore, we are trying to actually solve the problem exemplified by AutoAdmit, not merely change the nature of it, through our petition to establish a dispute resolution mechanism on AutoAdmit. We are not profiting from this petition. Indeed, it is our hope to find a way to prevent incidents like this one from occurring in the future, not simply to ameliorate some of the damages once the incidents have already occurred.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or comments about our company or our work. We’re happy to provide more information, or further discuss any of these issues.

Sincerely,

RDBlogger
—
RDBlogger
info@reputationdefender.com

How incredible is it that the person who e-mailed me in defense of ReputationDefender, “RDBlogger,” was not willing to reveal her or his real name?

Meanwhile, as you can plainly see by reading the linked post, what I wrote was:

“Xoxohth is a board that encourages anonymous commenting, and while I imagine some of the commenters likely are law students, my guess is that some of them are not, and are instead people with other agendas. I make no particular accusation against ReputationDefender, as I have no evidence or reason to believe that anyone associated with this company has participated anonymously in online harassment of law students or anybody else. It is, however, hard not to see that there are financial incentives to do so.”

I stand by this assertion.

Now consider the e-mail’s embedded parenthetical: “(We would be happy to have you compare our IP addresses with those of AutoAdmit posters.)” To do this would require AutoAdmit to reveal to me the IP addresses of its posters. How likely is this? Or can ReputationDefender obtain the IP addresses of AutoAdmit posters on its own? And if so, how? And even if they can figure out to do this as a technological matter, would it be legal for the company to do so? And then for it to disclose them to me?

Such a comparison would also require me to trust ReputationDefender to honestly and accurately reveal to me the IP addresses that everyone associated with the company uses. Should I trust them to do this, when a representative has e-mailed me from behind a pseudonym? Would you?

As far as the fees being charged by ReputationDefender, I have no specific information about what amounts unnamed clients may be paying, and no ability to verify any information the company provides in this regard, if it actually provides any, which so far it hasn’t. I have no idea about whether the “petition” has been successful, or whether it is likely to be, in “establish[ing] a dispute resolution mechanism” but I have my doubts. Sooner or later ReputationDefender needs to turn a profit somehow, and I am simply not grasping the nuances of the business model. And now I am even more deeply suspicious of this entity.

–Ann Bartow

Update: Lest there be any confusion on this point, I think content posted at AutoAdmit/XOXOHTH is extremely problematic and troubling. It is, as a friend noted, “a disgusting cesspool of infantile morons, sociopaths, and misogynistic freaks.” My point is that it would be better for the government to step in than to have shady for profit”reputation defense”entities attempting to financially exploit women who are already being victimized. I am really uncomfortable with the way that a dodgy for profit entity like Reputation Defender is exploiting the situation for its own ends, like some kind of sordid protection racket – “Nice reputation you got there, shame if something happened to it.”

NB: There isn’t a single woman on Reputation Defender’s “Management Team.”