An online mugshot can severely curtail your business ambitions

Most companies perform background checks and the results of your Google search could prevent you from getting a job you are otherwise qualified for.

This is a problem that 50% of all US adults suffer from. They don’t have a positive online reputation. And a reason for this is mugshots and online arrest records.

So is it legal for a website to post your mugshot online?

The Legality of Posting Mugshots Online

The majority of law enforcement divisions will post your mugshot and arrest record online. This is a matter of public record and can be legally accessible by anyone. Even if the law enforcement agency in question doesn’t have a policy of publicizing mugshots, anyone can submit a request and get that picture.

But what about websites reposting these mugshots?

That is perfectly legal because they are not posting private information. They’re republishing a public record that anyone can access.

This is protected by the Constitution under the First Amendment, which gives people the right to freedom of speech. So it’s impossible to use a legal argument to have a mugshot removed.

What about Sites that Charge People to Remove their Mugshots?

The online industry has grown up in recent years. Sites will post your mugshot online and you will have to pay them to remove that mugshot. Most people assume that this is blackmail and you can sue them for that.

Again, the truth might shock you.

If you have compromising information on someone and you demand money to not publicize it, this is blackmail. But in this case, the act has already happened, so there’s no case of blackmail if they charge you to remove the information.

It’s why this is a protected industry and most people don’t have any legal recourse.

To this day, there have been no successful prosecutions in this field. The Constitution protects this freedom to post mugshots under freedom of speech laws.

So What Can You Do about It?

Now that we know that anyone is able to publish public records, you now need to know what to do about it.

Some reputation management services are able to work with these websites to have arrest records and mugshots removed on behalf of their clients.

You can also have your record expunged from the public eye to prevent any further proliferation of your mugshot. However, the best option is to have the result suppressed.

That is the art of reputation management. It’s about burying the bad results with good results. It means making yourself into a brand and making those difficult pieces of material impossible to find.

Remember that reporting on someone’s arrest with a mugshot is not slanderous because it’s factual. It happened and you can’t sue someone for slander if they’re reporting on a fact, such as your conviction for a crime.

Last Word – Removing Your Mugshot Online

There’s no legal case for removing a mugshot. These websites are well within their rights to repost public records. That’s why you need a comprehensive reputation management service to protect your image by burying these bad results.

Do you have a mugshot you need to get rid of?

How to Maintain Your Brand During a Crisis

Every business will have to deal with a crisis sooner or later. Your brand is something that you built and should be protected at all cost. It could be justified or unjustified. For example, there’s a difference between suffering due to a scandal and suffering because your industry as a whole has come under attack. But you still have to react to the problem. So how can your brand weather the storm when it comes under attack?

Can You Play the Waiting Game?

Sometimes the waiting game can work and corporations have stonewalled a story in the past. The issue is that this can also backfire and the pressure only builds, which further damages your brand. We wouldn’t recommend simply waiting out a story and pretending it never happened.

Address The Issue Immediately 

The moment you notice a big story out in the open you need to address it. How you address it depends on what the story is. For example, if a story is slanderous or fake you should put out your side of the story and take the opposition apart. It could mean commissioning studies or simply relaying the real facts to the media. If you’ve done something wrong you need to think about what you’re going to do to make things right again. Don’t wait and hope the customer goes away because they won’t, and not addressing the issue could affect your revenue. 

Make a Public Response to the Problem

If you’re suffering from bad press because of something you did, it’s important to approach the customer directly in a public setting. There’s a reason why companies will contact someone directly on social media or another public forum. This ensures that others are seeing that the company is responding. Apologize for what you did and offer a gift to try to win them back to your side. This could be a replacement for a faulty product, a full refund, or another type of special deal that will get them to back down. It’s not important whether you win the customer back. What is important is that you tried and others saw that you tried.

Bury the Story with Your Own

The one thing that kills a bad story is a different story that’s much more interesting. This is why relatively small issues become major national issues during times when the news is slow. Think about whether you can bring a major announcement forward in order to make the story go down the rankings. It focuses people on other things and you’re also preserving your brand in the process.

Last Word – Don’t Let a Crisis Derail Your Brand

The cause of the negative press is not that important in reality because the way a company reacts should always be the same. You need to respond promptly to stop a small problem from turning into a big problem. However, the best way to avoid these problems is to avoid getting into these situations in the first place by always caring for your customers and running your business with quality in mind.

In the modern world, most people are searching for everything about everybody on the internet.
For business owners, it takes effort and money to build up an established presence online. The
team behind Reputation Lawyers stress how vital it is to have a positive online reputation.
With proper management, a person can build a robust online presence. But it only takes a few
negative posts to ruin all the hard work. These type of cyber-attacks can cause havoc on your
online reputation, taking months to repair.

Many times, merely identifying an anonymous source and removing the harmful material from
the internet is not enough. Material that becomes removed from a website can become posted
on other sites. These cat and mouse games sometimes are impossible to keep up with on a
daily basis. Content can become syndicated and copied throughout the internet automatically
and hard to contain.

That’s why hiring the team behind ReputationLawyers.com becomes imperative to recovering
the online reputation you established.

The attorneys at Reputation Lawyers excel at stopping cyber-attacks at their source.
Confronting the cause of a cyber-attack, sending cease-and-desist letters, and contacting law
enforcement agencies are a few of the first steps. Then, obtaining court-ordered injunctions and
removal orders can often be the only way to guarantee that a cyber-attack can become halted
for good.

Understanding the impact of your online reputation has become extremely important over the
past decade. One or two negative posts or reviews can cause a more significant effect than
positive ones.

Websites that thrive on harmful content sometimes rank higher than others who have real
material. Because of this, when a person searches your name or business, they can become
turned off by reading negative information. These negative messages are a form of
cyberbullying.

But what is cyberbullying?

It is any bullying that takes place online or through technological methods. The harassment of
the person can impact the online reputation, taking up a lot of time and money to repair.
Cyberbullying can impact a person’s well-being and status online. One of the steps required to
deal with cyberbullying often includes the removal of the false information. Taking this step will
lessen the damage when it comes to these posts.

For years, it has become widely assumed that individuals and businesses have little if any
options if the damaging content on the internet is victimizing them.
This situation is no longer the case.

You Can Control Your Online Reputation

The experienced internet attorneys at Reputation Lawyers have a full arsenal of legal methods
to completely remove undesired content from the internet and stop online attacks.

Also, the skilled internet attorneys have successfully helped clients remove damaging blog
posts, comments, pictures, and even entire websites from the internet. While using cost-
effective legal methods and techniques, they can successfully help clients.
While owning a business, online reputation has become extremely important. Building up a
business and relying on word-of-mouth can lead to customers from all over the world. When
they search for your business, you hope positive reviews and ratings come up. But sometimes,
individuals have other intentions.

If a person wants to post negative information about your business, they can go to websites and
social media. When a customer searches on various search engines, these negative message
can come up before the positive. Scrubbing these damaging material takes time and efforts
from a reputable source. That’s where Reputation Lawyers step in to assist.
The team always builds positive online content while taking down the wrong information. That
way our online reputation begins to become positive once again. The buildup takes time, but the
impact will last forever online.