Trading Spaces star Carter Oosterhouse hired shady internet reputation firm to bury stories

A reality TV star once accused of sexual harassment is one of dozens of celebrities who hired a shady internet reputation firm to bury negative stories about them, a report claims.

Eliminalia, founded by Diego Sanchez, 30, brags that it will ‘erase the past’ and ‘help build the future’ for their clients – claiming to remove any unwanted and erroneous information.

Internal records uncovered by the Washington Post found that Eliminalia had high-profile clients in at least 50 countries who paid the company to flood internet search engines with fake positive stories to bury any negative press.

HGTV’s Carter Oosterhouse reportedly hired the company to bury stories in which makeup artist Kailey Kaminsky accused him of trying to force her to perform oral sex on him in 2017.

Oosterhouse, husband of Hollywood star Amy Smart, has always denied the allegations, saying he and Kaminsky were in a consensual ‘intimate relationship’ despite allegedly hiring Eliminalia for $3,200.

HGTV’s Carter Oosterhouse hired the company to bury stories about him trying to force Kailey Kaminsky, a makeup artist, to perform oral sex on him in 2017 

The majority of customers paid the company several thousand dollars, with three paying more than $200,000

The firm first targeted a story in the Hollywood Reporter talking about the claims, according to documents seen by the Washington Post.

Eliminalia, claiming it was the ‘Brussels EU Commission’, said in a legal letter that Oosterhouse’s privacy rights had been violated.

The notice was sent to the content-delivery company Cloudflare, and then forwarded to Amazon Web Services, which hosts the Hollywood Reporter website.

Eliminalia demanded the ‘complete removal and modification’ of his name from the records, and also sent a privacy complaint citing the California Consumer Privacy Act to the parent company of the Hollywood reporter.

A representative for Oosterhouse did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

His accuser told the Post: ‘I think it’s deceitful, but at the end of the day, he knows what he did.’

The company filed thousands of complaints under fake names on behalf of other people, according to the Washington Post.

This included a California biotech entrepreneur who is accused of hiring a hitman to kill a colleague who threatened to reveal his frauds. 

Serhat Gumrukcu hired the company in March 2021 to get rid of stories about his 2017 conviction for fraud, the Post said.

Eliminalia, founded by Diego Sanchez, 30,  (pictured) brags that it will ‘erase the past’ and ‘help build the future’ for their clients – claiming to remove any unwanted information

Oosterhouse, husband of Hollywood star Amy Smart (pictured together in 2019), has always denied the allegations, saying he and Kaminsky were in a consensual ‘intimate relationship’

In 2019, the company tried to take down stories about David Legible, the Italian circus clown who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Switzerland in 2017 – though he has publicly denied the allegations.

Sanchez, founder of the company, forces employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement that threatens them with a $32,000 fine if they divulge how the firm works.

The majority of customers paid the company several thousand dollars, with three paying more than $200,000.

The cost of targeting a single webpage was as little as $590, according to a 2018 contract, with the firm fighting to remove hundreds of webpages for its highest-paying clients.

Eliminalia reported combined revenue of just over 2.5 million euros, or roughly $2.7 million, in 2020 and 2021, according to public records it filed with the Spanish government.

Kailey Kaminsky (pictured) says she was pressured by Oosterhouse into giving him oral sex while working as a makeup artist on his show Carter Can but he denies the claims

The contracts do not spell out Eliminalia’s techniques, and how much the firm tells its customers is unclear.

As part of their code of ethics, employees must embrace ‘honesty, care, diligence, professionalism, impartiality and integrity’ and comply with all ‘laws, regulations and professional standards.’

Sanchez previously defended the company, writing in Spanish: ‘Eliminalia’s activities have bothered a lot of people on the Internet.

‘They believe we veto freedom of expression, that we censor. But they forget that the freedom of expression has a limit: truth.’

‘Not everything published in black and white is certain, and that’s why the activities of companies like Eliminalia are necessary.’

Eliminalia did not immediately respond to requests for comment by DailyMail.com.