A man accused of launching cyber attacks on companies, including Fairfax Media, in an attempt to expunge his name from online stories, has been arrested in Seattle, Washington.

Officers from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation took conman Kamyar "Andy" Jahanrakhshan, 37, into custody early on Wednesday morning, US time.

The arrest came after a 2½-year joint operation between the FBI, the Australian Federal Police and the Toronto Police Department in Canada.

Under a number of aliases, Mr Jahanrakhshan, a Seattle resident, allegedly tried to coerce companies - mostly news outlets - into removing online references to his past as a convicted fraudster.

A series of businesses in the US, Canada and Australia began reporting in early 2015 that an individual was making demands while launching distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks.