Pew Report Highlights Need For Online Identity Management In Google Search Era

A Pew Internet and American Life Project study has found that 60 percent of online users are not worried about the data available about them online in an era when "Googling" for personal or business information has become commonplace.

That lack of concern about your online "brand" in a digital era could be foolhardy given how much is at risk for internet users. That is one of the themes in the Pew Internet and American Life Project report titled: "Digital Footprints: Online identity management and search in the age of transparency." The report, released Sunday, says online profiles have increased "the size of people's digital footprints, but few adult Internet users have made digital identity management a routine part of their online lives."

Nolan Bayliss, cofounder of Naymz, an online reputation management website and professional networking site headquartered in Chicago, said that professional online brand management is the aim of Naymz.com. "We understand in the future everyone will have their own brand so what we do is brand reputation management for individuals," he said.

Naymz, which bills itself as a site aimed at "empowering reputable professionals," is a community-centric site that includes a "RepScore" to create a "confidence index around every user on the site." Part of that includes inviting up to 10 references to vouch for your online profile accuracy, says Bayliss. Naymz also includes an identity verification component through a partnership with Trufina.com, he said.

"Right now the web is a free-for-all," said Bayliss. "Anyone can create information online and create false identities. The idea here is to verify who people are with a "RepScore" that "enhances" your online reputation, he said.

Online brand management is particularly important given the propensity of everyone from job recruiters to colleagues and other professionals to "Google" your name, says Bayliss. He says that as much as 30 percent of the searching done on Google is "people searching."

Naymz itself has found that on average there are "200 searches per month" for any given name, said Bayliss. "If you took 100 random names and looked up search activity, you are going to have about 200 searches per name," he said.

NEXT: Do You Know Who Is Searching Your Name?

"Everyone has this misconception that no one searches for me online," said Bayliss. "They search for other people but don't think that anyone is searching for them. That is a false pretense. People need to understand there are people searching online and they should be concerned about what shows up."

The Pew study, based on a telephone survey of 2,373 adults, of whom 1,623 are internet users, found that 47 percent of internet users "have searched for their own name online, but few monitor their online presence with great regularity." Furthermore, the report says that 53 percent of internet users "have searched online for information about personal and business contacts."

Naymz provides professionals with the ability to enhance their online profile and clean up any bad information so their reputation is not damaged by either "mischaracterization or misidentity," said Bayliss.

A premium Naymz service for $4.95 per month offers visitor alerts so users can see the location and IP address of those searching on their name and no ads on their personal profile page.

The Naymz brand management concept is taking hold, said Bayliss. He said that registration on the site, which was launched in June 2006 is up 6,000 percent in the last year with registration now running in the tens of thousands per month. "The whole idea is to market yourself more effectively," he says. "We think there is huge growth going to happen

Bayliss said personal brand management is critical given that 70 percent of job recruiters Google individuals to check on their online identity. "There is a big problem if what is showing up is not right," he said.

For those that have no online identity, there is the question of losing out on a big opportunity because someone else has marketed themselves more effectively online, he said.

Bayliss predicts that over the next two to five years there will be a "better understanding of what to post online" and more awareness of the need for online identity management. "People are going to take more steps to censor themselves and recognize that if there is some damaging information out there about them that they have to engage in some clean up," he said. "Some users are already accentuating the positive."