Businesses need to be more proactive when it comes to managing their reputation online, according to Gartner.

The pervasiveness of the internet and more sophisticated online fraudsters have increased security concerns about participating on the internet. And by 2010 criminals will routinely use the internet to extort funds by threatening to damage corporate reputations, says the research group.

“If your business depends on a positive internet reputation, then you have little choice than to explicitly manage that reputation online,“ said Gartner research vice-president Jay Heiser.

“The internet is like a bad-news petri dish - negative information multiplies and spreads with frightening speed and becomes virtually impossible to erase,” said Heiser.

Despite the resources such as PR agencies and competitive analysis provision that are already available, a comprehensive scanning and alerting mechanism for the internet does not yet exist.

“Reputational persistence is a unique internet phenomenon that traditional reputation specialists have never had to deal with,” said Heiser.

“The fact is that where the internet is concerned the only way to counteract persistent negative information is to overcome it with a greater weight of positive information,” he said.