Social Fingerprint gives job seekers a hand with online reputation; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/4/12

Deborah M. Todd, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Social Fingerprint gives job seekers a hand with online reputation: "When the Federal Trade Commission determined last May that Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Internet background screening service Social Intelligence was in compliance with Fair Credit Reporting Act guidelines regarding collection and distribution of personal data, the floodgates opened for companies such as SMI to customize software to meet the new demand... With Social Fingerprint -- a free online service that individuals can use to monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn and the Internet at large for negative content associated with their name -- much of the technology behind the social media search remains similar to what's used by consumer reporting agencies. The technology conducts a targeted crawl -- a search over several sites -- seeking specific keywords on social media sites and the broader Internet to weed out pages with negative content about clients. Links to pages that show the negative keywords are sent to clients. Reports can be sent daily, weekly or monthly at their discretion. Customers can then take action to have incorrect information removed."

U.S. Penalizes Online Company in Sale of Personal Data; New York Times, 6/12/11

Edward Wyatt, New York Times; U.S. Penalizes Online Company in Sale of Personal Data:

"The Federal Trade Commission assessed an $800,000 penalty on Tuesday against Spokeo, a data collector that the commission said violated federal law by compiling and selling people’s personal information for use by potential employers in screening job applicants.

The action is the F.T.C.’s first case addressing the sale of Internet and social media data for use in employment screening."

Social Media History Becomes a New Job Hurdle; New York Times, 7/20/11

Jennifer Preston, New York Times; Social Media History Becomes a New Job Hurdle:

"A year-old start-up, Social Intelligence, scrapes the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years.

Then it assembles a dossier with examples of professional honors and charitable work, along with negative information that meets specific criteria: online evidence of racist remarks; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos; flagrant displays of weapons or bombs and clearly identifiable violent activity."