Nuts About Blogging

Web 2.0 and reputation monitoring – August 2009

What would you do if someone spray painted something defamatory on its side your home? You can call the police or council, but more likely you clean it yourself. It's an inconvenience, but that could be solved quite easily.

Now imagine that the wall was seen by millions, including friends, family, clients and potential employers. No matter how you 've tried, you could not clean. In fact, many of the efforts you made to clear only drawn more attention and helped make the wall more and more important.

Welcome to the Internet.

CASE USMANOV

Usmanov Alsher the billionaire Ukrainian and principal shareholder of Arsenal football club, hired Shillings to try to keep the blog belonging to Craig Murray (former ambassador of the United Kingdom in Ukraine). Murray had written about Usmanov's alleged criminal activities in his rise to power. Precipitating these actions Usmanov faces the heaviness of the Internet.

Far from management to remove posts Murray, press interest increased when Fasthosts hosting the site Web Craig pulled the plug on all sites where the webmaster was responsible Craig against the refusal of the director to shoot Murray site. It is unfortunate that the site administrator of the site including Boris Johnson and the London Bach Society. The incident also became a cause famous in the world of blogs where many prominent bloggers started commenting on the case, Murray and others posted on blog sites in the United States, outside the jurisdiction of the legal action.

Unless you made the owner of the site where the content appears negative, to the deleted content on the web is difficult or impossible. You may succeed in making a site to take down the content, to see that the contents reappear elsewhere.

Results Google search

The fact that the observations made on the Internet and can be instantly accessible to millions indefinitely people in the world is a serious concern. As in the offline world, perhaps spent as a grunt and hearsay about a pint in the pub is another beast on the web. Even if the original site where the comment was posted disappeared comments can remain cached in a search engine or appear on other sites or blogs.

When gossip Web site TMZ leak audio tirade against the Christian Bale Director of Photography on the new Terminator film, the story spread quickly through the Internet. A Google search for "Christian Bale" the next day revealed several stories about angry diatribe of the star and a link to the original audio file TMZ, all in the first ten search ranking.

Although accounts Google for 50% of all Internet searches, number of Google searches would never go beyond the first ten links. For businesses and individuals around the world, this reputation means the most visible is dictated by ten blue links and a few lines of text.

HATE SITES

So what do you if you're company X in London and a dissatisfied customer alumni in Beijing began companyXsucks.blogspot.com?

You could try to ignore it, but your potential customers probably will not when they Google "Company X" X Company and ranks at number 2 link Sucks, just behind the site Official Company X.

But at least you know there's a problem.

You can try to recover a propaganda website hate using a domain name similar to your company name through UDRP or DRS dispute settlement system. However, this can be risky because it could be argued successfully that the site is fair use under the rules. The other problem is that even if you succeed, you can ignite the situation further, and find that your success is short lived if the negative comments pop up on another site.

In some situations, you may be able to take control and publish a response in the press or on your own website and sending emails. This is what society Israel has recently where anonymous defamatory comments were published on the subject on a variety of websites and also sent E-mails around.

These attacks are often short-lived. Surprisingly, the best option is sometimes simply ignore the incident and let gradually disappear. It takes a lot of energy to maintain the site with new sufficiently important messages. On the other hand, in some cases, the site negative could be among the top ten results, even years after the last post.

DEFAMATORY CONTENT

And if you heard of the company's product group's private Facebook "X" is dangerous ", which has 500 members, and do not appear on Google? Or there is a micro-blogger on Twitter using the name of your CEO and false claims? What can you do about the thread on page 4 of a message-board talk as Company X abuses its workers?

In the recent case of Applause Store Productions Ltd v Raphael [2008] EWHC 1781 (QBD) lawyers acting for Mr Firsht got around the problem anonymity. They sent a notice of withdrawal to Facebook and obtained an order for Norwich Pharmacal Facebook to communicate not only the registration data but also information about IP addresses and e-mail that created the profile.

Despite protests that Mr Raphael was borrowed and had not created the Profile defamatory, it was held liable for defamation on Facebook. The judge refused to believe his story. To his chagrin the judge ruled that allegations of dishonesty in the comments were serious enough to injure the business of Mr. Firsht make him liable for damages. Thus, the sentence for Mr. Firsht gave £ 15,000 for Mr. Firsht personally, £ 5000 to his company and extra £ 2000 for violating his privacy.

WHY MONITOR reputation?

That there is even any validity to any smear online is irrelevant. Once on the Internet, it is in the public sphere, where it stays.

Watch everything can be complicated, confusing and time. And that's before you even attempt to answer the negative content or incorrect. Consequently, an increasing number of companies and individuals use reputation monitoring services to keep track of their reputation line.

These services have varying levels of success in filtering spam, duplicates and promotional copy and present you with a breakdown summary what is said about you online. Some just show you the raw information, while others also offer a statistical analysis to determine how much content is negative or positive.

tools reputation management should not be confused with newspaper clippings that services to inform companies on the particulars of his name in the press. Often, these services include a license to reuse the content as in promotional materials. reputation monitoring is quite different in nature and aims purely to browse the web, social networking sites, forums or bulletin boards for any mention of your name or other key words that are controlled.

About the Author

Shireen Smith is an intellectual property solicitor and technology lawyer at Azrights Solicitors providing advice on trademark registration, patents and domains and domain disputes.

View the original article along with others on trademarks, domains and other legal matters at http://www.ip-brands.com/content/news/articles.aspx

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