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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the you-can-run-but-you-can't-hide dept.

TechDirt reports [techdirt.com]

Earlier this year, we discussed how UC Davis detailed [techdirt.com] in a report that it spent $175k with a reputation management firm to try bury the 2011 pepper-spraying incident that has become so infamous, as well as to bolster the positive reputation and search results of its former Chancellor, Linda Katehi.

[...]A new report has been issued that makes it clear that the $175k with the one reputation management vendor was just the tip of the iceberg, and that Katehi's obsession with her own online reputation was far more serious than anyone had known [sacbee.com]. Indeed, her attempts to meddle in her own online search results started long before the 2011 pepper-spraying incident.

[...]While the initial reporting indicated a single vendor had been paid $175k on Katehi's request to try to control messaging about the school and herself through a barrage of good, but trumped up, press, UC Davis actually hired three different reputation management firms to do this, all to the tune of over $400k. And she appears to have been more concerned with her own reputation than that of the school she was to be stewarding.

[...]It goes without saying that as we, the link above, and several other online media outlets are discussing these revelations, and placing them alongside the original 2011 incident for context, the work of the three vendors and the nearly half a million dollars paid to them has failed.

Previous: UC Davis Chancellor Suspended After $175,000 Online Name-Scrubbing Antics [soylentnews.org]
University of California in Davis Spent $175k on SEO and "Reputation Management" [soylentnews.org]

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