What happens when you Google yourself? For those worried about less than favorable search results or news stories, “scrubbing” has emerged as a popular approach to improving a poor online reputation. From celebrities and large corporations to universities and organizations, there is a growing appetite to boost the online image of their brand. One way to do that is to hire experts to clean up and literally wipe negative mentions of them from the Internet. Here, David Choffnes, professor in the College of Computer and Information Science, weighs in on whether scrubbing is an effective and realistic way to manage and improve an online reputation.