This article is a particularly good explanation of how and why people and companies should get out ahead of their reputation management problems. British Petroleum, Tiger Woods, and Sharon Angle all could have benefitted from this knowledge in the past year. People will need this advice in the future too, so I’ll post it here for all the world to see–because as the golden rules teach us, nothing on the Internet ever disappears.

“Ignoring people makes them mad,” Downhill said. “And now they have tools to fight back and make their voices heard.”

PC manufacturer Dell learned this lesson in summer 2005, when blogger Jeff Jarvis began documenting his customer service ordeal with the company. By the time Dell responded and fixed the problem, stock prices had fallen.

Amongst the golden rules of online reputation management listed by Downhill are, “It never goes away”, “the boss knows”, “domains matter”, “be safe”, and others–all of which are good advice for someone who is looking to have an Internet presence.