Washington (Somalia Today) – The United Arab Emirates paid more than $6 million to a US reputation management firm to suppress a damaging report about its ambassador in Washington, The New York Times reported, detailing a years-long effort to reshape Google search results around one of the Gulf state’s most influential diplomats.
The newspaper said the UAE hired Terakeet, a firm based in Syracuse, New York, from July 2019 to promote favourable material about the Emirates and manage the online reputation of Yousef al-Otaiba, its ambassador to the United States since 2008.
Al-Otaiba, widely regarded as one of the best-connected foreign envoys in Washington, was concerned about a 2017 article by The Intercept that alleged links to sex workers and traffickers, the Times reported.
The article, titled “The Sordid Double Life of Washington’s Most Powerful Ambassador,” appeared near the top of Google search results for al-Otaiba’s name, according to the report.
Digital clean-up
The Times said Terakeet’s work for the UAE was disclosed in records filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the US law that requires people and firms working for foreign governments to register their activities.
Four former Terakeet employees told the newspaper that the firm mounted a broad campaign to push The Intercept article down in search rankings.
One account manager relocated to Washington for more than a year to work directly with the Emirati ambassador, the Times said, in an effort to avoid leaving a digital trail about the work.
Terakeet created a personal webpage for al-Otaiba and used a sock puppet account to edit his Wikipedia page with favourable material, according to the report.
It also prepared flattering profiles that highlighted the ambassador’s leadership and diplomatic work and supplied them to institutions linked to him, including Harvard’s Kennedy School, the Milken Institute and the Special Olympics.
Those profiles included links to favourable UAE-related blogs written by Terakeet employees, a tactic designed to strengthen the pages and push them higher in Google results, the Times reported.
The campaign appeared to have an effect. By 2023, The Intercept article had fallen to the second page of Google results. Today, it appears on the fifth page for most users, according to the newspaper.
The UAE paid Terakeet more than $6 million between 2020 and 2022, and the firm’s work for the Emirates continues, the Times said.
Al-Otaiba did not respond to detailed questions from the newspaper, except to confirm that Terakeet had done work for the UAE.
Powerful clients
The investigation also examined Terakeet’s work for Kathryn Ruemmler, a former Obama White House lawyer who later became chief legal officer and general counsel at Goldman Sachs.
The Times said Goldman Sachs was a Terakeet client when Ruemmler faced scrutiny over documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and financier whose network has remained the subject of intense public and legal examination.
Documents released over several months showed Ruemmler had used affectionate language toward Epstein, discussed travel with him, thanked him for expensive gifts and gave him legal advice, according to the report.
She also expressed interest in joining meetings with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a close associate of Epstein.
Terakeet tried to manage the reputational fallout, but the effort ultimately failed to contain the damage. Ruemmler resigned from her role at Goldman Sachs in February and is going to leave the bank in June.
Mac Cummings, Terakeet’s chief executive, defended the company’s work, telling the Times that organisations must tell their own story or risk having it shaped by third parties and generative artificial intelligence.
Terakeet has also worked on campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while its corporate clients have included MetLife, JPMorgan Chase, Oracle, Target, Walmart, Disney and Bain Capital, the newspaper reported.
The revelations offer a rare look inside the opaque world of online reputation management, where governments, corporations and powerful individuals spend large sums to influence what the public sees first when searching their names.
For the UAE, the report adds to scrutiny of its extensive influence operation in Washington, where the Gulf state has built close ties across politics, business, defence and media while presenting itself as one of America’s most important Arab partners.
