Quite a large number of compliance officers who do not ordinarily read my blog have accessed the recent article on the problems I have encountered with using the new, expanded version of the Google News feature for due diligence investigations. If you have not yet seen it, you may access the complete text here*.
If you read my series on the efforts of former Miami attorney Michael Burnbaum to cover up his dark past, you know that reputation damage firms clog up the Internet with "positive" web pages, articles, asocial media, and other nonsense. Since counterfeit news information sometimes masquerades as authoritative new stories, and since Google News is now including ALL the news stories, going back many years, your search for negative news will have to plow through all of it.
Worse, some of the more inventive reputation restoration companies doctor up real news articles, by substituting the name of your target, but this time in a negative articles. Remember how I showed the readers how Mr. Burnbaum, who must have really agitated someone, had his name inserted into several really nasty crimes, as the perpetrator ?
If you must use Google News, use it with a grain of salt, and check out all the negative entries that you encounter, for your target may be totally innocent of all the crimes he reportedly committed. If you take the stories posted about him as being genuine, and not altered, you may be doing your customer a disservice.
______________________________________________________________________________
*Is Google News now More or less useful for Due Diligence Investigations ?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.