Mugshots – You need to know

Most people assume they will never have a mugshot. But, let’s face it you could have a big glass of wine at dinner, drive home, get pulled over, register .09, and now you have a mugshot.

(Update 5/23/2012 – Here’s another scenario for you. Our local City Council just passed an ordinance that states people who let their grass grow too tall could face up to 60 days in jail in addition to a $500 fine. Not only that but they included a section stating not just your lawn but the grass around brush and trees. So evidently they are drop dead serious about weed eating around here. Just saying – some of us may be a less likely recipient for a mugshot but it’s still possible!)

So, that being the case you need to know about an emerging industry that could affect you, a family member, or a friend in the future.

Here’s how it works,

1) Bob registers a domain name like mugshotshereworld.com

2) Bob sets up a web site on the doman that pulls public data from local government web sites.

3) As previously mentioned you had a big glass of wine at Dinner and now have a mugshot.

3) Bob’s web site now contains thousands of pages that get updated automatically. Each page contains a persons name, what they are accused of, and their mugshot. Now you are on Bob’s web site as well.

4) Search engines like Google index all of those pages including your mugshot.

5) You Google your name on Monday morning and see your mugshot at the top of Google image and your profile on Bob’s site at # 3 in the web results.

6) You panic and visit Bob’s web site mugshotshereworld.com and see a link that says, “Remove Mugshot Now”

7) You click on it and send $89.95 to Bob’s paypal acount.

Your mugshot is removed. Unfortunately it doesn’t end there. Many other people all have the same idea as Bob and they created their own mugshot web sites who also want you to send them $89.95. In theory this could go on for the rest of your life.

What do you do?

Start building your web presence if you have not already. You need to create a protective barrier under your name so that if something like this does happen in the future it causes a very minor problem, not a major one.

Founder of Reputation Hawk
Creator of Repumatic
Blogging @ Reputation.biz
Have a question? Check out ormforum.com

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