The Internet suffers from a number of afflictions that the real world escapes from. We know the funny ones, LOLcats and Youtube, but the most serious one, in my humble opinion, is online libel. In the real world, if someone slanders you—you can take them to court, insult them in return, or simply ignore it. You have options, although they might not sound like appetizing ones. On the Internet, there are no options.

The anonymity of the Internet makes it possible for anyone to say anything about a company or person. There is absolutely no recourse for those who have been slandered, nor is there any way to hold commenters accountable for their words. This should result in a great deal of suspicion on behalf of Internet-browsers, but that is unfortunately not so. Instead, there is just a great deal of slander, or libel, against companies and individuals. This often occurs because of teenagers who have too much time, former employees who are still upset, or competitors who want to utilize the anonymity of the Internet in an under-handed way.

There is a way to deal with this, though, thanks to online reputation management. This is an industry which helps to de-emphasize negative articles and blog posts and replace them with positive publicity. ReputationHAWK is one of the leading businesses in this industry. They have received national media attention from newspapers like The New York Post and Chicago Tribune, magazines like Time and Newsweek, and shows like The Early Show.