i find it mindboggling that criminal records are so accessible in the US - so that something like ripoff report is a legal business there does not surprise me in the least
The calculus changes in the era of ubiquitous communication and digital search, but broadly speaking Americans still feel they should be protected from the snake oil salesman.
In my observation a far more likely explanation is that US culture sees "criminals" as subhuman monsters hardly worthy of consideration. I'm exaggerating a bit here, but I find general US attitudes towards crime and criminals unhealthy – there are many data points for this: felony disenfranchisement, non-violent criminals routinely shackled by the hands and feet in many jurisdictions, "prison rape lol", death penalty, draconian punishments even for simple things, the state of the prisons, death penalty FOR MINORS until 2005, many minors are prosecuted as adults, the number of people in prison, stand your ground laws, a police force with long-standing ... issues, that "kids for cash" not only was a thing but managed to go undetected for many years (many of the sentences were idioticly draconian and even a single one of them should have set off all sorts of red flags), obsession with crime on TV news and such, routine administration of drug testing, etc. etc. etc.
And, of course, the mug shot racket, most of which are taken after arrest and not conviction – sucks to be you in cases of mistaken identity or other harmless arrests where nothing much was going on.
A few of these: okay. All combined: a pattern.
I too feel that there is little desire to rehabilitate people who have committed a crime. Once you are in that category you are marked for life, and visibly. It's still a stigma in countries that don't have public records (people talk), but there is at least the possibility of becoming a better person and moving on.