A report in The New York Times on efforts to make the Internet forget likens the proliferation of personal information online to "a metastasized cancer" that has "embedded itself into the nether reaches of cyberspace, etched into archives, algorithms and a web of hyperlinks." More often, people from all walks of life are turning to online reputation managers that focus on improving their clients' Internet images through such techniques as removing negative posts and burying unfavorable search results. "The Internet has become the go-to resource to destroy someone's life online," the head of one reputation management company put it, adding the result is that life offline is turned upside-down as well. (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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