ReputationDefender

Founder Michael Fertik, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, began following press coverage of “cyberbullying” while clerking for Chief Judge Danny J. Boggs of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals; he did not want a momentary mistake to follow young people like a lifelong tattoo, and later realized that adults faced the same problems. ReputationDefender was founded in 2006, originally conceived as a way for parents to protect their children from damaging postings on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and after launch it quickly expanded to adults.⁠[1][1][1][2][3][3]

In November 2006, the startup contacted websites on clients’ behalf to request the removal of photos, blog posts and social profile comments that threatened their social standing. Clients paid $10 to $16 a month for a monthly report on their online identity and $30 for each removal request. Its services were divided into My Reputation for adults, My Child for parents, and My Privacy, which helps remove personal data from data-broker sites and was not yet publicly available at the time. Fertik acknowledged that news articles in major publications and court records were nearly impossible to remove and that the company offered a full refund for such requests; he said the company was sensitive to First Amendment issues and did not try to squelch genuinely newsworthy speech. Cyberlaw scholar Susan Crawford noted that most websites would take material down just to avoid the hassle of possible litigation.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3][3][3][3][3][3]

In 2008, ReputationDefender completed a Series A round led by angel investor Mike MaplesMike MaplesMike Maples (Mike Maples Jr.) is an American venture capitalist and co-founding partner of Floodgate, an early Silicon Valley seed fund, who has invested in companies including Twitter, Twitch, Lyft, Okta, and Applied Intuition. Earlier he was a member of the startup team at Tivoli Systems and a co-founder of Motive Communications; he coined the “Thunder Lizards” concept and wrote the bestselling book “Pattern Breakers.”Open the full entry. In 2009 it raised a further $8.65 million in two tranches: $4 million from Bessemer Venture Partners in May, and $4.65 million from Kleiner Perkins in August, with Bessemer participating again; the round was announced on January 12, 2010, and David Cowan of Bessemer and Ted Schlein of Kleiner joined the board. At the time the company sold four monthly subscription products, MyReputation, MyPrivacy, MyChild and MyEdge, and Fertik positioned its business as a “third phase of digital security” focused on protecting personal identity.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4]

In 2010, Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier, co-written by Fertik and David Thompson, was published. At the time, ReputationDefender assigned each client a “personal search agent,” and its basic MyReputation service reviewed everything on the web about a client and then removed objectionable material to the extent possible, without guarantees.⁠[1][1][1]

ReputationDefender was the original name of Reputation.com. By July 2011 the company was operating as Reputation.com and had completed a $41 million Series D round led by August CapitalAugust CapitalAugust Capital is a San Francisco Bay Area venture capital firm co-founded in 1995 by David Marquardt and John Johnston. It primarily backs early-stage information technology businesses and makes selected later-stage investments. Its investment history includes Epinions, Shopping.com, Splunk, BILL and UpGuard. The firm’s brand, management services company and individual funds are distinct entities.Open the full entry, bringing its total funding to more than $65 million. ReputationDefender then continued as a business unit of Reputation.com serving individuals and small businesses.⁠[5][6][6][6][7]

On April 3, 2018, RepDef Holdings LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of a fund of The Stagwell Group, purchased all of the stock of ReputationDefender LLC, for consideration that included a $4.0 million promissory note payable in four installments, the last due on April 3, 2020. On April 5, Stagwell announced that its fund, Stagwell Media LLC, had acquired ReputationDefender from Reputation.com Inc., without disclosing other terms. ReputationDefender had by then served hundreds of thousands of clients worldwide from offices in Redwood City, California, Tempe, Arizona, and Liverpool, England; chief executive Rich Matta stayed on, and the company continued to do business as ReputationDefender. Its former parent, Reputation.com, focused on SaaS applications for enterprise clients.⁠[8][8][7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

Mark Penn, managing partner and president of The Stagwell Group, said ReputationDefender’s field had become even more important given concerns over social media and privacy, and that Stagwell’s digital marketing and PR agencies could help accelerate its growth. Michael Fertik, founder and CEO of Reputation.com, said the business he had founded more than a decade earlier had grown into two companies serving distinct types of customers.⁠[7][7][7][7]

On July 9, 2020, ReputationDefender launched ReputationGrower, which builds expert-designed professional websites for job seekers, professionals and small business owners and offers professional biographies, LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry optimization and social media clean-up. On September 30 that year, The Stagwell Group contributed all of the assets and liabilities of RepDef Holdings LLC and its subsidiaries to a wholly owned subsidiary of Stagwell Marketing Group.⁠[9][9][9][9][8]

On March 3, 2021, Mark Penn, then chairman and chief executive of MDC Partners, told a J.P. Morgan investor conference, while presenting the proposed combination of MDC and Stagwell, that ReputationDefender was generating significant revenue, had an online reputation management system, and had recently created an automated online reputation “card” that gives users a score to help them decide whether they need its services.⁠[10][10][10]

On September 15, 2021, Stagwell sold ReputationDefender to a strategic buyer for approximately $40 million, recognizing a gain of approximately $43 million on the sale. The cybersecurity company NortonLifeLock later stated in its annual proxy statement that in September 2021 it had completed the acquisition of ReputationDefender, an online reputation management and digital privacy solutions company.⁠[11][11][12]

On November 7, 2022, following the completion of its merger with Avast, NortonLifeLock announced its new name, Gen Digital Inc., bringing cyber safety brands including Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, CCleaner and ReputationDefender under one company.⁠[13][13]

On February 1, 2024, ReputationDefender launched Total Radius, an AI-powered protection service for public-facing individuals designed to help them control their online presence and reduce the likelihood of physical safety threats arising from the availability of online data. It monitors mentions across search engines and social media; removes personally identifiable information from data brokers, the dark web, court case sites and real estate sites; identifies and remediates account impersonation, account takeovers, doxing and physical threats; and sends real-time alerts to individuals and their security teams. At launch it was available in the United States and Canada. That December, the company issued a press release under the name “ReputationDefender by Norton,” with Chad Angle as head of the brand.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9]

As of October 2026, ReputationDefender operates under the “ReputationDefender by Norton” brand, which belongs to Gen Digital Inc.; Gen Digital’s annual report for the fiscal year ended April 3, 2026, also lists ReputationDefender among its own trademarks alongside Norton, Avast, LifeLock and others. Its services fall into three categories: suppressing or removing incorrect, embarrassing, malicious or outdated search results while promoting positive content; removing personal and family information from most people-search sites and scanning regularly; and Concierge Digital Security and VIP services for executives, public figures and families, some plans of which include identity theft insurance from a third party.⁠[2][14][15][16][16][16][16][2][17]

The company is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, with additional offices in Mountain View, California, and Liverpool, England. It says it pioneered the online reputation management field, and that since 2006 it has developed more than nine patents and served more than 300,000 privacy customers and tens of thousands of online reputation clients in over 100 countries; some patents used in its products are perpetually licensed from its former parent, Reputation.com.⁠[18][19][18][18][19][19][19][20]

ReputationDefender: Official website: https://www.reputationdefender.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

X: Public account: https://x.com/ReputationDef (opens in a new window)⁠[14][21]

LinkedIn: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reputationdefender (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReputationDefender (opens in a new window)⁠[14]