New Website Protects Usernames From Social Media Identity Theft
April 20, 2009 | Barry Wise | Press Releases
39 Comments
I just launched a new website, the next iteration of CheckUserNames.com. KnowEm.com not only checks for the availability of your username on 120 sites, for a small fee we’ll stake your claim on every one of them by automatically signing you up.
KnowEm.com (http://knowem.com) launched a new web service today which monitors hundreds of popular websites for social media identity theft. By entering a username, which can be a brand name, internet identity, or vanity URL, KnowEm.com allows you to instantly monitor the availability of that username on over 120 popular social media websites such as Twitter, MySpace and Digg.
“Social Media identity theft is the modern form of domain name squatting,” says KnowEm co-founder, Barry Wise. “10 years ago it was a race to get CompanyName.com. Today it’s a race to secure a brand name on sites such as Twitter, which is quickly becoming an amazing tool for both brand transparency and customer service.”
A quick check today revealed that some of the biggest brands in the world have still not secured their account name to protect their brand from identity theft. For example, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Pepsi (NYSE:PEP), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Exxon (NYSE:XOM) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) still show that dozens, and in some cases over 80%, of popular social media websites still list their brand names as available account names.
It’s not just major media brand names that have dropped the ball — many celebrities have not secured their online identity either. Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey’s recent exposure on the popular new microblogging service Twitter.com has shown that celebrities are taking interest in using social media as a vehicle for PR and communication. But as of today their Twitter screen names, @aplusk and @oprah, are still both available on almost 90% of other websites on KnowEm.com’s list.
“The time is coming when online reputation management is critical even for normal citizens. You would be surprised how many companies are now using Google to see what a prospective hire has about them on the internet,” says Knowem co-founder, Michael Streko. “It is just too risky to let your name fall into the hands of someone else.”
KnowEm not only monitors to see if your username is available on 120 sites, it also offers a commercial service which will register your brand or username for you. For $64.95 you can secure your identity on over 120 different social media websites. For an additional $9.95 per month, they will also continue to monitor new websites and register your username on them as soon as they launch.
Tags: automatic username signup, checkusernames, identity theft, knowem, social media
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Comments
39 Responses to “New Website Protects Usernames From Social Media Identity Theft”
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Hi Barry,
Have you redirected CheckUserNames.com to this website??
Maneet;
Yes, CheckUserNames.com now points to KnowEm.com. We still offer the same great free username check service as before, we just offer a lot more now!
Hey thanks for the post Barry. The bigger the business / person, the higher chance someone will snatch the name unfortunately. A shame that it’s so easy for someone to claim the username and make money off someone who would put the name to good use
hello ,
Its a good service but just wanted to know that how you would create accounts on all 120 sites manually and how long it would take to do this
Thanks
Gagan
In this age of social media theft the need of an Internet tool is a must which can keep a track of username theft and KnowEm.com is a great blessing.
there are many celebrities that are late to the social media game. last week i saw an ebay auction for a celebrities name (to remain nameless) on twitter. what is this world coming to?
I agree that reserving vanity URLs in twitter, blogspot, wordpress, livejournal has become important nowadays. I guess I should start using knowem to reserve Dalai Lama’s URLs and ask the followers to buy my services ;-)
Reputation management and identity management is very critical to both businesses and individuals. Knowem.com is good stuff!
This is an awesome service. Glad to see positive endorsements spreading around the SEO community. We use Knowem.com to secure our client’s company names whenever possible. The domain authority for some of the sites on the list is extremely strong. Not a bad way to kick off a social media campaign.
@Miami SEO, Well it’s not just a positive endorsement, since I am one of the founders :)
But thanks for the strong endorsement of KnowEm and your business! Hope we can work together a lot more in the future!
These types of sites are golden to claim your online identity. Thanks for the tips!
Thanks Barry for the great post.
This is a great service, losing own identity is really a big problem and it becomes bigger when it comes to business. All businesses want to be identified by their own names but when that is not available people look for alternatives that some times don’t work well.
Knowem is a great service! I used them a short time ago and went for the commercial service, let me just say it was money well spent!
I didn’t know Social Media Identity Theft was that big of an issue…?
Nice blog post.
This article openned my eyes on the importance of User names I guess. I didn’t think abot Social Media in that sense.
This tool IMO is awesome but I bet there would still be sooo much spam…
social media identity theft is nothing but a form of cybersquatting using social media sites. This is an excellent service to protect usernames from social media identity theft.
Awesome tool. Now I’ve got to go around and see where my social media identity is already being used. Lots of usernames to register now! Cheers…
This is a brilliant Idea, But im not sure this will work. It reminds me of OpenID
Really good idea. I hope that it works out for you
See… I think a service to enroll you in these sites is great. But I’m not sure how much of this is overkill. If you have a trademarked name, you should be ok. If you’re a John Smith, it’s a different story.
This is a great article now that Facebook is changing their URL structure to Usernames & Custom Vanity URLs.
yah, brand squatting is big if for anything but to keep the vultures from trying to hijack your brand.
i’m also a big believer in brand query domination in the SERPs for this very same reason.
cheers!
KS Ken
Like a few others I am totally taken aback by the concept of this, but at the same time it makes sense. I have never previously heard about social media identity theft and I am glad I find myself educated with the antidote.
Great Idea, I will sign up for this for sure!!
We really can’t avoid spam but I guess
this service could lessen or prevent.
But could it really prevent the social media identity theft?
Barry yet again a great post. Identity theft is a big worry on social networking sites.
I can see that becoming a very handy service. Prominent people often get their identities taken on sites, and have to go through a lot of hassle to prove they are the rightful owner of that name.
Good service, gets the thumbs up from me!
In attempting to secure online brand awareness without having to bastardize your brand name across so many social media sites, this is a very practical service and I can see a big demand for it.
Great site Barry, Identity theft via social networking sites can be a huge worry for a lot of people. Thanks for taking the time to put this site together.
This is an outstanding tool. I’m going to add it to my SEO training and Internet marketing course.
It’s becoming difficult for companies to keep up with all of the “important” sites to create accounts on. This tool should help.
Awesome article Barry, and quite reminding of how identity theft can literally destroy your name and business online, not to mention your reputation if you have a high reputable name in the media field.
This is very good indeed. I can say that now a days social media identity theft as you call it is very much a problem. It is a good thing that you were able to create this site “knowem.com” so that we can keep our accounts.
Hi Barry,
Just took a look at knowem and I have to say its a fantastic piece of work.
Thanks
Ben
Love the idea!
Excellent website and a great service. Indeed social name theft has become the second largest net crime in our days. thumbs up Barry :-)
SEO Pro’s are smart and know 90% of what SEO can do, but it’s the 10% we are all chasing to achieve the summit of the mountain of SEO.
Great service, theres a growing list and i noticed this was originally published last year – have you been keeping up with the plethora of new social media sites that have been born/died in the last 12 months?