To allow people to escape from negative scores generated by these services, Zittrain says that people should be allowed to declare ''reputation bankruptcy'' every 10 years or so, wiping out certain categories of ratings or sensitive information. His model is the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires consumer-reporting agencies to provide you with one free credit report a year — so you can dispute negative or inaccurate information — and prohibits the agencies from retaining negative information about bankruptcies, late payments or tax liens for more than 10 years.

How about 'reputation bankruptcy’ on the lines of financial bankruptcy, to allow people a fresh start?

As real identity grows in importance on the Net, the intermediaries demanding it ought to consider making available a form of reputation bankruptcy. Like personal financial bankruptcy, or the way in which a state often seals a juvenile criminal record and gives a child a "fresh start" as an adult, we ought to consider how to implement the idea of a second or third chance into our digital spaces.