Online moderation firm eModeration has launched a new reputation-rating service designed to help firms protect themselves from potentially abusive or illegal user-generated content uploaded to their sites.

The ReputationShare technology, developed by internet safety firm Lookbothways, will be offered to all eModeration customers in the UK, allowing them to monitor the reputation of users leaving comments on their sites.

It will also allow firms to identify those users with good reputations, so they can reward those who take a positive active role in their communities, said eModeration.

"Online communities have a duty to their users to keep them safe. Sharing reputation information between brands will help prevent persistent abusers from reinventing themselves on other sites," the firm said.

"This is a system that other moderation companies and brands should take up, and we encourage them to do so. The more people that use it, the better it will be for all community users."

Reputations on the service are anonymous and secure, with no personally identifiable information stored, and individual sites choose how to interpret the information and punish or reward users accordingly.