Interview between Frank Esposito with Upstate Ledger and Mike Harris with Undoxxed
With information now at our fingertips in a matter of seconds, a company’s reputation can unravel almost instantly. A misinterpreted social post, leaked email, or off-color comment can trigger a full-scale public relations crisis, often before leadership has time to respond. High-profile brand controversies, such as Microsoft Copilot’s election censorship scandal, Spotify’s recent data breach or the CEO kiss-cam scandal have all demonstrated how quickly public trust can erode.
As businesses face growing scrutiny from consumers, regulators, and online communities, maintaining a clean, credible public image has become a strategic necessity rather than a marketing afterthought. Against this backdrop, reputation management firms are increasingly being called upon to help organizations identify risks, respond to crises, and protect their digital presence.
Undoxxed is a reputation management and digital privacy firm dedicated to helping individuals, businesses, and public figures take control of their online image. Search results, social profiles, and public records are what shape first impressions now before a conversation even begins. Undoxxed works to ensure that what appears online truly reflects a brand’s current identity and values, offering targeted solutions for content suppression, review management, and proactive brand protection.
Frank Esposito sat down with Undoxxed Founder, Mike Harris, to learn about the rising stakes of corporate reputation and how businesses can proactively safeguard their public image before a crisis hits.
“Why did you start Undoxxed?”
After many years of working for, and consulting with, agencies in the PR and reputation management space, we realized we could better help individuals and businesses by working with them directly, as opposed to working “behind the scenes” as a private label company. The current ORM space is outdated and slow to execute. Our clients need results yesterday, and I wanted to give them a program that starts executing on Day 1.
“Companies caught in scandals come to mind when I think of reputation management. Are those the type of cases you take on?”
It’s a big mix really. We have helped companies going through very public PR nightmares of course, but you’d be surprised at the variety of clients we see. Lottery winners wishing to “vanish” for safety reasons, wrongly-accused individuals trying to make outdated arrest info go away. We’ve helped victims of online stalking and data breaches, and of course, victims of doxxing. Sometimes we’re just cleaning up inconsistent brand identity – fixing that alone can help a business get more leads. Our team performs a lot of business review management too. Sometimes we’ll find bogus reviews from competitors or other bad actors and get them removed. More often it’s about improving the customer experience and helping businesses score lots of well-earned positive reviews.
“What separates ethical reputation management from “shady” tactics people hear about?”
I suppose all industries have some form of shady tactics, but in ours, I think the biggest issue is when reputation management companies employ tactics that simply don’t work, yet the clients are stuck paying for them. A reputable firm should be 100% transparent with their strategy and timelines, and should be fanatical about privacy and confidentiality. Undoxxed leads with the positive. With the exception of data removal campaigns, in most cases we’re not actually erasing something from the past but showcasing all the good that an individual or business has accomplished instead.
“When should a someone take action on their reputation?”
Last week.
Really, now is the time to dominate your own search results if you’re not already. Your website should rank, as should your socials, white papers, positive review profiles, favorable news results, etc. If anything is showing up at the top of Google, Bing, or ChatGPT that doesn’t belong there – let’s get rid of it.
“How has AI and search evolution changed online reputation management?”
Hugely. Our clients are no longer just concerned with search engine results like Google. AI overviews appear with many searches now, and those overviews might pull information from all kinds of sources, good or bad. We need to be able to impact them as well. Few do it right.
“What mistakes do you see businesses make when they try to handle reputation issues on their own?”
The common mistakes we see usually come from people trying to edit their own Wikipedia pages or reaching out directly to a detractor, like a blogger or a journalist with threats, or arguing in the comments of a negative review. Even worse are people who’ve paid for fake reviews from India or something – this just creates another reputation problem to fix.
“Where is Undoxxed located?”
We have a distributed team located 100% in the USA, mostly in PA and Upstate NY.
“What are the biggest threats to one’s online appearance in 2026?”
Oh, there are a couple that are increasingly prominent. Data breaches and lax personal data security, social media drama and doxxing. People get caught up in online political ragebait – don’t become a blood sacrifice to the algorithm!
Mike Harris and the Undoxxed team illustrate the importance of responding to reputation issues with a strategic plan rather than urgency alone. As digital platforms continue to shape public perception in real time, companies are increasingly being forced to rethink how they respond to controversy and reputational risk. Those that invest in preparation and measured response strategies may be better positioned to withstand scrutiny and maintain trust when challenges inevitably arise.
