Recently I wrote that whoever coded for Reputation 1.0 would own Web 3.0; this is the second part in a series that addresses the issues of “internet reputation”

RedTape at MSNBC has a great article here on issues with private data firms that keep track of people’s interaction with law enforcement or the state. Companies like Intellus make a business of providing information on background checks and other issues for people and companies that want to run a background check on people. They do not limit access to their systems; anyone can pay to have a background check done on anyone for any reason.

Beyond stalking concerns which are legitimate, the idea of people who can get their records expunged by the courts, or have their crimes reduced from Felony to Misdemeanor is an important issue for people who want to work, or are simply trying to clean up their acts and go strait. While the court system will often provide relief and either expunge or reduce the conviction.

Good for people, bad for employers, and that is where data dump sites like Intellus come in, while they do make efforts to fix information that is provided by the court systems. As a private company they are under no requirement to do so. Reputation 1.0 meets private company policy, with private ownership of the company, with policies that say “never delete anything”.

Adding to the complexity is the lack of heterogeneous data sets, each government organization does things differently. That makes it even more complex for a company like Intellus to remove data from their system when and if they get the updated record.

RedTape calls this the “Internet Scarlet Letter”.

    Getting criminal records expunged from court records is often easy. Multiple programs allow convicts to clear their names after proving they’ve cleaned up their act. But clearing the digital mess left behind can be much harder, she said. Commercial background database vendors gobble up criminal records, but many are not nearly as efficient at deleting records that have been expunged by the court system, she said.

    “These databases take a snapshot of someone’s record, then put it out in perpetuity,” she said. “There’s little oversight of the databases, and even less interest in updating people’s information in them.” Source MSNBC

Hence one of the real issues with Reputation 1.0, public data can be expunged, but privately held copies of that public data are under no such obligation. Some companies are determined to hold on to everything regardless of where the person in question is in their life, reformed, reforming, or still working on damaging their reputation.

Providing a solution to this will most likely require government regulation of the private data industry, in that the standard 7 years expiry on some things, 20 year expiry on other things and data upkeep for court mandated changes will have to be developed. We already classify data based on the required longevity in laws like SOX, HIPAA and others.

Maybe Reputation 1.0 needs the same kind of boost from private and public data repositories on what data can be kept, how long it can be kept, and under what circumstances it can be released.