E-reputation and digital identity: definitions

The internet is the most popular way to learn about a legal entity or a person. It is a genuine mine of information, and you only partly control it, because you are not the only one talking about yourself. Other people also give their views, positive or negative, and the visibility of that information is almost universal. The web can raise you up, help you become known and grow, or work entirely against you.

E-reputation therefore tends to define, in other people’s eyes, what you are, depending on how they talk about you, for better or worse. That internet notoriety can tilt either way; in any case it will say a lot about how you are perceived, whoever you are. It can be founded or false, but whether the claims are true or not, they exist, and they can lift you up or push you into the ground. The consequences can be catastrophic.

It is therefore essential to keep an eye on your e-reputation so you can steer it. This is you, a person or a company, a real figure or an invented one, and it is on you to give the image that seems fairest, using the tools within reach.

E-reputation is a term that first appeared only about fifteen years ago. It was first used on auction sites, where buyers could leave a comment about the seller they had just bought from. That was the concrete starting point of digital identity, or digital social life in other words. A mention did appear in the 90s, without really defining the idea.

How e-notoriety works

We all have, in some form, a representation of ourselves on the internet, again whether we are a person or a company, and whatever our role in society. Daily life often forces us to look after that representation, through social networks or a dedicated personal site. There is also a network that forms without us, because anyone can say what they want on the internet, on any subject. That is where e-notoriety starts: the moment you begin to be known online, whatever means got you there.

A note on digital identity

Digital identity is the link between a person and their virtual information, which a simple internet search can find, on Google for example. That digital identity is of course represented by social networks, which give a person or a company a presence on the web. Several categories of information belong to it.