Today we Google everyone. We may read lots of negative things about a person that we Google. Section 230c of the Communications Decency Act protects Freedom of Speech on the Internet, but it does not protect the victims of malicious or defamatory speech. Unless or until the law catches up with this Willful Blindness, as a victim you may need to prove your own character by using a private investigator. This is now coming to the attention of law enforcement and in some jurisdictions and countries, it is becoming legislated and can be prosecuted. In the UK there are statutes. Here in the United States the term CyberHate is coming of age and a push toward prosecution is underway, Hate Crimes in CyberSpace.
Have you ever thought about who creates the websites that have the web ranking that rises to the top of Google’s search engines? Google and other search engines like Google are indexes that have web crawlers. The web crawlers search for keywords and take us to sites that contain information about the subjects we are searching. Many very powerful websites refuse to take things down because they claim to protect people from companies or individuals that “rip people off.” Every time someone clicks it makes advertising dollars for the websites, so there is a price attached to Shame. Google has claimed to have algorithms that preclude them from keeping these websites from posting negative or derogatory information but in light of a recent Australian Supreme Court ruling, Google and other search engines may have to address this situation Google Sued. Have we ever thought that some of the things posted could be written by people with personal vendettas come to be known as cyberbullying Pew Study Report on Cyberbullying? Have we ever thought if any of the things posted are true? Any person can buy a domain, have it hosted and create their website and write glowing reviews all day to have themselves appear as if they have “halos over their heads.” There are “reputation repair companies,” that can help anyone with a “bad reputation,” who has the money to pay for it, fix their reputation by hiring their company to place good posts with high web ranking that will appear high up on search engines, ahead of those that show them in a bad light. Google is great for finding restaurants, reading the news, and watching YouTube videos, but if we have a legitimate need to vet someone for hiring, dating, marriage, employment, rental of your property, or other important and legitimate reason, we need to go to source documents for information that is verifiable and accurate. There are also places known to be credible sources.
Prairie Wolf Investigators can help us do this. We can go to courthouses to retrieve documents to verify the accuracy of things posted on the internet. We ensure that documents posted on the internet have not been redacted, copied and pasted and or altered, Photoshopped, or otherwise enhanced. All verified and signed legal documents are filed with courthouses and are kept there and recorded in ledgers with page numbers these are the types of source documents needed to prove backgrounds once initial recognized industry standard database research has been conducted.
Anyone can post anything on Google, and on many of the websites whose claims to fame are that they “never take anything down.” In fact, many of those websites fuel the “reputation repair,” industry that charges large sums of money to create web sites that become highly ranked to “fix” the damage done by negative posts that exist on their websites and that they refuse to remove. As experienced private investigators, we are well versed in verifying and confirming the veracity and validity of internet sites and getting to the data you need in your investigation from reliable sources of information.