Brand.com was an American online reputation and brand management company[3][4] based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[5] It was founded as Reputation Changer in 2009. In 2013, it purchased the Brand.com domain name for $500,000, and changed its name. The company provided Internet search management, creating positive web articles about its clients in order to have them overtake negative news, and Wikipedia profile management. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and was shut down.[6]
 | |
| Formerly | Reputation Changer |
|---|---|
| Company type | Incorporation (business) |
| Industry | Public Relations |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Defunct | 2015 |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
Key people | Michael Zammuto, President,[1] Dave Armon, CEO[2] |
| Website | http://www.brand.com/ |
Reputation Changer
editThe company was founded in September 2009 as Reputation Changer,[7] with its headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania.[5] The company began as an online reputation management company offering services to small businesses and individuals.[5]
To help improve online reputations, Reputation Changer created its own positive content about its clients, in an attempt to force other less flattering articles about them down in Google search results and thus cause criticisms to "disappear".[8] Though during this time the company had been accused of "making false claims" about the effectiveness of their services, the company insisted that those claims were the result of rivals and not legitimate complaints.[9] This includes the hiding of negative user-generated reviews for hotels and other commercial enterprises.[10]
In November 2012, Michael Zammuto joined the company as President.[11] This led to some restructuring within the company, including the June 2013 renaming of the company from Reputation Changer to Brand.com. The re-branding including the acquisition of the Internet domain brand.com for $500,000.[12] The company also moved its headquarters from West Chester to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[5] The company had 135 employees, and worked with both small and large clients.[13] Seattle City Light hired Brand.com to remove a 2008 Seattle Weekly story critical of their CEO, Jorge Carrasco. Brand.com created several blog posts "to drown out critical stories" including one at Huffington Post where the writer did not disclose conflict of interest, subsequently leading to the article being removed.[14][15] Ars Technica reported that some of the websites that the stories were posted on "appear to have been utterly fake".[16] In May 2014, Seattle City Light requested a refund from Brand.com as they claimed the company did not deliver the services that were promised as the critical story still appeared high in Google searches.[16] In September 2014 it was revealed that Brand.com had received a penalty from Google for potentially trying to game the system in increasing its own company's Google rankings. Brand.com contacted online websites directly to ask the removal of links to Brand.com.[17]
Services
editBrand.com offered brand management and reputation management services.[18] They reviewed the online presence of individuals and companies and provided action plans said to help control how information appears in search engines.[19] Services also included suppression of negative reviews on sites like Yelp or Google Reviews.[20] Part of these services was the planned launch of Brand.com's "Google Eraser", which claimed to expunge negative listings from a Google search. At the time, some stated that the process was unproven, and that Brand.com had not been transparent about its process, claiming that their processes were proprietary.[21]
In 2013, Brand.com stated further that they would enact a De-Indexing Action Plan to permanently erase false or libelous information from major search engines, as opposed to attempting to move the negative information further down in search results.[22] The process involved verifying that the information was false, and then working with Google, Yahoo, and Bing to de-index the information.[23] The company created the Command Center platform, through which clients could monitor the results of its advertising or reputation management efforts.[13]
Brand.com edited Wikipedia on behalf of clients.[24][25] The company claimed on its website to have "built an entire practice around creating, managing, and monitoring Wikipedia." and offered to create a "positive Wikipedia page".[26][27] Michael Zammuto told Quartz in 2013 that the company "helps ensure that information on Wikipedia is accurate, not false or defamatory."[24] Brand.com also charged clients to have journalists write news stories under their direction, instead of having journalists independently select their own stories from news releases, and claims that these news stories have appeared in news publications including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The Huffington Post, and Forbes Magazine.[28]
Bankruptcy
editHaving released most of its workers in 2014, Brand.com filed for bankruptcy in 2015.[6]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Ensign, Rachel Louise (14 May 2013). "The Morning Risk Report: From Cyber Lemons to Lemonade". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ "Brand.com Company Profile". Linkedin. Brand.com. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
- ^ Ha, Anthony (June 21, 2013). "Thanks To A Six-Figure Purchase By Reputation Changer, Brand.com Is A Thing Now". Tech Crunch. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
- ^ Adams, Susan (14 March 2013). "6 Steps To Managing Your Online Reputation". Forbes. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ a b c d Key, Peter (June 27, 2013). "Reputation Changer now Brand.com". Bizjournals.com. Archived from the original on 18 December 2013. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
- ^ a b Juliana Reyes (2015-05-22). "Rich Gorman, Brand.com cofounder: Here's why my company failed - Technical.ly Philly". Technical.ly. Archived from the original on 2017-11-08. Retrieved 2019-11-06.
- ^ Han, Nydia (December 10, 2012). "Protecting your online reputation". ABC Action News 6. Archived from the original on 12 December 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
- ^ Tasmin Cave. "The Corporate PR Industry's Sneaky War on Internet Activism". Archived from the original on 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2017-08-25.
- ^ "Fixing the Reputations of Reputation Managers". February 2, 2012. Archived from the original on February 6, 2012.
- ^ "Brand.com Helps Hotels Bury Negative News. Noble or Sneaky?". June 27, 2013. Archived from the original on May 26, 2014. Retrieved May 24, 2014.
- ^ "Michael Zammuto". Philadelphia Business Journal. Archived from the original on January 1, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
- ^ Koetsier, John (5 July 2013). "Biggest domain sales of 2013 so far: $500K for Brand.com". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on 15 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ a b "Brand.com helps manage its clients' reputations online". December 10, 2013. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-05-24.
- ^ "City Light hires online results firm to polish its CEO's image". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ "Huffington Post pulls blog item tied to City Light paid PR effort". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ a b Farivar, Cyrus (2014-07-12). "Seattle utility wants $17,500 refund after failure to scrub negative search results". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2016-10-22. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
- ^ "Why reputation manager Brand.com had to manage its own". Archived from the original on 2014-10-26. Retrieved 2014-10-25.
- ^ Heitner, Darren (20 August 2013). "Sharapova To Sugarpova: Why The Name Change Would Have Been A Silly Business Strategy". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ Davis, Daniaja (10 September 2013). "Miley's Downfall". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ Daisyme, Peter (11 September 2013). "How Brand.com Reviews Suppression Helps Boost Online Reputation". Search Engine Journal. Archived from the original on 16 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ "BrandYourself.com calls BS on Brand.com's Google eraser service". November 14, 2013. Archived from the original on October 22, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
- ^ Koetsier, John (13 November 2013). "Brand.com launches 'first systematic program' to remove lies and libel from Google". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on 17 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ Hong, Kaylene (13 November 2013). "Brand.com launches a program for deleting false Web pages on Google, Yahoo and Bing". The Next Web. Archived from the original on 16 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
- ^ a b Leo Mirani (13 November 2013). "This company promises it can delete slanderous results from Google—for $7,500 (and up)". Quartz. Archived from the original on 31 July 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
- ^ Harvey Chipkin (20 May 2013). "The Other Guy's Social Media". Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
- ^ "The Wikipedia Action Plan manages, monitors, and helps control Wikipedia pages for your brand". Brand.com. Archived from the original on 2014-02-13.
- ^ Brand.com (11 March 2013). "Reputation Changer Offers New Tools for Building Accurate, Authoritative Wikipedia Pages" (Press release). PRWeb. Archived from the original on June 30, 2013.
- ^ "Newscred, Percolate, Brand.com Scheme To Alter Digital Content Creation". May 20, 2014. Archived from the original on May 24, 2014. Retrieved May 23, 2014.