Like That Bunny With The Pocketwatch

Yeah, I'm late. Wanna fight about it? I went to bed super-early last night so I could wake up and snowboard today. Yes, snowboard in Ontario. It wasn't that great, but it was nice to go with friends!

Anyway, yesterday's discovery is something that I'm appalled at: a service that a friend of mine (I SWEAR) found in Cosmo. It's called Reputation Defender, and it pretty much lives up to its name, I guess. The online service scours the web for embarrassing information about/photos of you, in case a potential loved one, or (worse?) a future employer may come across it. They then take every step possible to remove it from the public, or quasi-public, domain it's in.

Reputation Defender really irks me, as I'm a firm believer in being open and honest about what's done. I mean, sure, a white lie about how close you are to a place, or even whether something looks good on a friend/loved one is one thing. When, on the other hand, you're so ashamed of an incident or a piece of information from the past that you actively seek to delete it from others' radar, I find that just a bit disturbing.

After all, a great way to get to know someone is by learning what they've done in the past, and how they've grown and matured since then. Reputation Defender just removes all of this learning opportunity and instead replaces it with a false ideal of who someone really is.

If it's going to be important for one's future, it's probably bound to come up sooner or later, online service or not.