A forgotten MySpace account still lingering out there with photos of you doing a kegstand could prove problematic during a job search.
That’s where Yourself Online hopes to help.
Calling itself an online consumer privacy and persona management service, Yourself Online is an Austin-based early-stage startup.
"We look for anything potentially damaging to an online reputation and persona."
Co-founder and CEO James Chance said the company, which is headquartered at Capital Factory, launched in May and has about 1,300 customers. It won first place and $35,000 in funding at the student competition PitchTexas at last year’s South by Southwest.
Chance said the company is in growth mode after about 18 months of research and prototyping.
“We signed a partnership with a large provider of identity protection” in April, Chance said. “It’s a large organization that does credit scoring. We’re looking to roll out 100,000 paid users within the next year.”
The product searches for users’ data across the internet, analyzes content and provides personalized and actionable recommendations to the customer using AI. The company is offering an introductory special for $39.95, which includes six months of access. The regular price is $49.95 upfront with $5 monthly fees.
“When somebody signs up, we ask for access to their social media accounts.
We also gather any email addresses associated with that user. We look for anything potentially damaging to an online reputation and persona,” Chance said.
Many people forget about accounts they no longer use, he said.
The service is particularly useful for people who’ve grown up with social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The company said consumers have created digital footprints across multiple decades and life stages. Prospective employers, financial institutions and possible romantic partners may be turned off by a long-ago tweet or post in bad taste.
Chance and co-founder and CTO Dimitrios Mistriotis both previously worked at Google.
“I was working in consumer data at Google and was working a lot with some of their big advertising clients and seeing the amount of data was gathered from customers,” Chance said.
That information was used to assess people for jobs, loans, insurance and other products, he said.
A lot of people have put their life online, Chance said, and “who they are now is not necessarily who they were before.”
