In a perfect example of online business synergy, Google has announced
the purchase of ReputationDefender, the online company devoted to
helping people repair their cyber-reputation.

"This is an amazing breakthrough," said a Google spokesperson. "As we
all know, Google causes 99.9 percent of the damage to someone's
reputation to begin with, because we can't be sued for archiving it in
our search engine, even though Google is the only reason most people
would find the defamation in the first place. I mean, someone gets
defamed on a board with a dozen people reading, no one would notice,
but when they search the target by name, it comes right up for anyone
snooping. What this means is the need for sites like
ReputationDefender will never go away."

Google was also optimistic about the growth of ReputationDefender,
because, as the spokesperson pointed out, "only a fraction of people
really use Google to snoop into others' lives. In the next decade, we
expect that percentage to increaes sharply. Even fewer people have
mastered the art of google-bombing people, or using Google as a
defamation weapon by planting it in obscure internet areas. Also, as
people learn about anonymous posting, proxies, and remailers, that
make their messages untraceable, they'll lose their fear of being sued
even more."

(note: this is parody)