Steven Wyer learned about reputation management the hard way.

The respected businessman saw his online reputation marred, literally overnight, when two of companies he owned endured litigation. Steven Wyer watched helplessly as misinformation took over search results, leaving him no recourse. Whether the information was true or not was irrelevant, Steven Wyer’s business was irrevocably damaged.

At the time, Steven Wyer had built two impressive businesses out of collecting consumer debt. With clients including General Electric, Chase, and H&R Block, Steven Wyer’s Wyer Creative Communications, Inc. was named the fastest growing company in Middle Tennessee for five years in a row before the litigation changed it all.

“It was shocking that people from the other side of the world asked questions that had nothing to do with the professional relationship I had developed with them,” Steven Wyer reflects. “Both businesses ended up shutting their doors because of information I had no control over.”

The information continued to haunt Steven Wyer in 2006, when he tried to diversify his professional interests. The entire experience showed Steven Wyer now negative information that shows up in search results can impact a person’s business, financial outlook, and even his personal relationships. Steven Wyer is alarmed to see how often such negative information comes from a competing business, an angry former employee, or an unhappy customer in the throes of a bad day.

Because the Internet is unfiltered and unmanaged, Steven Wyer says, there is no way to control such misinformation. People who have worked a lifetime to build a business can have it all wiped away in a matter of hours, with no recourse.

Through his business, ReputationAdvocate.com, Steven Wyer works to help those whose reputations have been marred online. Additionally, Steven Wyer has published a book, Violated Online, that details what can happen when a person’s reputation is attacked. Offering more than fifty tips to prepare for such an attack, Steven Wyer’s book has put him in demand on the speaking circuit, and he now works hard to juggle a thriving business and his work on his next book.

In the book, Steven Wyer details how the very laws that protect our rights to free speech have backfired on us in the internet age. The government will rarely step in when someone has been defamed online, Steven Wyer says, leaving companies and individuals with nowhere to turn. Violated Online arms readers with the tools necessary to survive in the digital age, outlining specific steps everyone can take today to protect against an online attack.

Violated Online is available from Amazon in softcover and e-book format, with downloads available for the Nook, iBook, Kindle, and PDF.