don't want suggestive photos on the net? DON'T POSE FOR THEM. i'm with ben on this one, fuck repdef & that idiot

Nice, but "Ronnie Segev and ReputationDefender Can Eat a Dick" is so much more colorful and entertaining -- I would SO start watching the Today Show if Ben had said THAT.

Kinda fluff. Paints RepDef in too good of light. Didn't mention anything about them trying to help the reputations of companies that have done wrong & want to "sweep things under the carpet".

Whats Mama Popken and Our Girlfriend think of all these TV appearances you've been doing there, Ben?

i think rep. defender should worry about sites like dontdatethemgirl.com, whosarat.com and usedgirlfriend.com more so than forums like consumerist.

I'm sorry but what? Was that 15 seconds of comment by Ben meant to blast Reputation Defender. I've got no axe to grind either way but even labelling Ben as a "critic" seemed odd. His response: "It's ultimately futile" is world-class lame. Sure it is, we all know it's futile. But people love that Sisyphean struggle against the futile, else they feel their life is out of their control.

I just don't see any blasting of Reputation Defender going on here at all. Sorry, nice to see Ben out there but he didn't score any points on this one.

If all they are doing is contacting the offending site and asking them to take it down, why cant you do that yourself? Not that I agree it necessarily should be taken down, but why pay for a service to do what you can do yourself?

But, I am with Bambino on this one, if you don't want it getting out, don't do it.

Ben, you took it pretty easy on them there. If these people don't want something on the internet, don't put it there or don't do it at all. Awesome advertisement shot for the site though! Go Consumerist!

Umm so wait you pay these guys to ask a website owner to remove content. Can't you do that yourself?

Media Whoring: greatest Tag EVAR!

@jeblis: Yea, but they have the ability to CC all correspondence to legal@weddingdepot.com

So the woman in the piece was worried about her reputation from some inane pics her X boyfriend put on the web?
WHY? Anyone who knows you knows you broke up, doesn't it make him look pathetic?
I don't understand these people. If you are posted on a PORN site, then I can see being upset. But some stupid pics of you and your X at an office party?
You really don't have anything better to be worried about?

My Grandpa said it best: If you wouldn't want to see it printed in the paper, DON'T DO IT!

Simple.

As far as the woman featured in this piece? From what I saw on the clip, her art sucks. She needs to call reputation defender and get them after The Today Show to get them to take that video of her hideous art off the internet!

That was a *blast*?
Huh?
Hardly.

And I'm sure Reputation Defender didn't do anything that the girl herself couldn't have done with a 5 minute call to her ex.

Big whoop on both sides.

@dbeahn:

HAHA That is for sure! As a previous poster said, have reputation defender do it so they can CC emails to legal@shittyart.com

@veronykah: If you watched Big Brother this season, you'd see how pathetic people can be about their pictures.

ah, they probably cut Ben's *real* comment and made it in a better light, dontcha' think? Go, go consumerist.com!

if she would have just "put out" i'm sure here little self-righteous ass wouldn't be in this situation.

That was hardly a blast. I mean it is nice they talked to him at all, but I was expecting some grit...where was it?

Trying to take something off the internet is like trying to take piss out of a swimming pool.

Uh.... Ben? You failed. You didn't even shift the discussion. Basically, all the average person got from what you said was, "I think people should be able to say and do nasty things on the Internet."

Not what you intended, but that's how it played.

The whole thing is under 2 minutes. This isn't even a whole story. It's more like an anecdote. Really, why did The Today Show even bother. It was just the world's most boring ad with a few seconds of a "critic" thrown in for balance. How much did Reputation Defender pay them?

This isn't a critique of Ben. I liked what he said but since the story only talked about an individual trying to get photos taken down his comment won't even make sense to the viewers who don't know the work they do for large companies.

This is nonsense..as above commenters mentioned - if you don't want it shown then don't do it. However, I don't think that's even the biggest issue.

If the girl wants pictures of her taken down that she didnt authorize to be put up, I think she's on shaky ground, but that's one thing. Asking a blogger to take down a post that he/she wrote, in his/her own words, about someone else is definitely a free speech issue.

If it's libel, then they have legal recourse, but if its just a negative statement, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Shouldn't Reputation Defender be going around the internets deleting every bad reference to Reputation Defender? Would this create a black hole?

So perhaps Carey should have used the word "criticize" instead of "blast" no biggie. It's great to see BP on TV. He always makes me laugh for some reason. (in a good way) So our next venture seems to be that we need to start the Reputation Defender Destroyer - and on and on it goes.

WTF? That was totally an ad for this stupid company that can't do anything more than a person can do themself. Actually, less, because the person usually has more contact information than the company does.

Note to Ben: Don't get ambushed and used for newsvertisements anymore.

Hahahaha, I can't believe people pay others to post obnoxious/kneejerk responses and modify wikipedia articles for them. It does seem like the sort of thing crazy people are wont to do, of course.

Great job not staying by the sidelines and aggressively pursuing your PR at the expense of your clients, Reputation Defender.

I dont think Ben put on a clean shirt to say 10 words on TV. The Today show snipped ten words. Really a soft ball approach by Today, but it's that kind of show.

That was "blasting" Rep Defender? Sadly No.

So, that woman didn't want anybody to see those shots of her on the web, yet she goes on national TV where they show exactly those shots, and let thousands of people who didn't know shit about her know that she's deeply concerned that somebody might see her being...hugged...by her ex-boyfriend?

Genius.

I'm just going to throw this out there, I have a nonsexual man-crush on ben.

It makes sense Ben didn't really "blast" back, he has to be tactful to be respected. Apparently, you have to look good to the daily idiot before you can start talking shit about a lame website.

It may be difficult to shake an image off Ben though, he reminds me of Alan Ruck...

Anyway Ben, I think the posters would want you to have more salty sailor language when you go on interviews, but then again the FCC would probably force them to cut the good parts anyway.

It must work...Ronnie's Wiki page has vanished.

And yeah, hardly a 'blast.' I missed it twice and had to rewind to hear it. Definiterly a win for RD.

The Today show is still on??? Fox news has like 1000 times the viewers.

Benny-pooh must be living the good life. Looking quite "healthy" there.

So let me get this straight; this woman didn't want to have these images seen by the public, so she hired an internet company to convince the host to take them down...

...and then agrees to go on a nationally televised news program and show them to literally millions of people instead of hundreds? Money well spent, I say.

I'm betting Ben said some harsher things but that the media butchered his sound bites. I used to work around media and it was normal for them to cherry pick what would be used. Some of my colleagues refused to deal with the media anymore after a few such incidents.

Let's be fair. We don't know if the pictures they showed on the Today show are the same ones she was bothered by. Most of us don't have any trouble fixing our own computers and installing our own peripherals. Some people have no trouble preparing their own taxes, even when they're running a small business. Reputation Defender would have the knowledge and resources to find all the people who could take the photos down. Not just the 1 or 2 email addresses on the offending webpage.

That being said. Individuals do have a right to privacy. I consider it bad etiquette to post someone's picture on the internet without their permission.

The internet can be embarrassing and quite harmful and there should be a means to counter inaccurate or harmful posts and pictures.

Let's say that I find an old family photo and alter the photo to show a porno scene with my sister and then post the picture on 117 different forums and free photo hosting sites. I am sure my mommy and my sister would most likely want the photo removed.

Oh how about that video of my uncle of driving his brand new car down the driveway and strking the family dog. Dog survived. But does anybody think the family should have to relive the experience?

Or the photo of my neighbor when he won the election for a seat on the city council and was hugging everybody within arms reach. One of the people he hugged turned out to be a convicted rapist.

Real stuff. Fake stuff. Stuff taken out of context. I got stuff that I would not want to see on the net. Just because you want to see it does not mean I should standby and allow my privacy to be violated or reputation to be harmed.

MSM garbage from the MSM playbook - Find a tiny sliver of a positive angle for anyone who will pay you enough and make it the whole story, ignore the vast majority that is negative. Big surprise.

This is a good news / bad news story.

Good News = People who watch TODAY won't remember anything about the cotton candy they just viewed.

Bad News = See Good News.

Ben: If your goal was anything other than to get "CONSUMERIST.COM" flashed for ten seconds on national TV... You was robbed! You was robbed! You was robbed!

dang! Ben is cute!

I don't like how ReputationDefender was represented in this piece.. I'm gonna call ReputationDefender to do something to take it off the air

Reputationoffender.com is available. I can't imagine why reputationdefender allowed this domain to be open like this, as people could create all kinds of mayhem with it if the company grew.

I miss Ben Popken.

"The Today show is still on??? Fox news has like 1000 times the viewers."

Boy, does Fox News have you guys hypnotized!

Sorry, Dude, but FNC has NEVER had ratings to equal ANY show on ANY of the Big Four TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox).

The fact that you watch FNC all day long and your right-wing friends watch Bill O'Reilly and think he's some kind of sage does NOT mean that ALL OF AMERICA is watching that shit. We aren't.

I know you guys aren't exactly fans of FACTS, but what I'm saying about FNC's ratings is TRUTH.

And the point of all of this is?

The guy tried, failed, & moved on, big deal. One other thing gets me, why does anyone feel the need to use foul language, it is not like you just dropped a 100 pound rock on your foot.

I think its kind of ironic ben bans people before his vacation for no reasons given, yet is defending the right to information flow. Can you say HYPOCRITE

Except for the Bank of America guy, were there other posters banned? How many? I really didn't hear about this (except for the supposed BA PR poster).

@smarty: I think I've said too much already. I know at least one that was banned after bofa guy, and definately not for being a troll. I won't say who b/c I don't want to get banned also. I know the guy through work/IM, he actually got me on this site. All I know is he was given no explanation initially or after 2 emails to ben directly, then a few days later, ben left on vacation. I haven't spoken to him about this since. I'm pretty sure he'd have a new name by now if he cares(though I doubt it), but its not the point. Ben is a hypocrite.