reputation management

This page looks at online reputation management, in particular the growth of 'attack' or 'sucks' sites that criticise businesses, government agencies, other organisations and individuals.

     the issues

As we noted in our consumers guide, while the web is a marvellous channel to promote your goods and services or to build a community of interest, it also presents the unscrupulous or merely disgruntled with a powerful mechanism to damage your image online and offline.

That reflects the speed with which email can spread and the low cost of building a website that's globally accessible. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, the web is "a bully pulpit".

It reflects perceptions that defamation doesn't occur in cyberspace, although as we've noted in our governance guide, Australian and overseas courts clearly consider otherwise. 

And it reflects the slowness of some audiences to critically evaluate what appears online, a lag that's led Bruce Schneier - author of the perceptive Secrets & Lies: Digital Security In A Networked World (New York, Wiley 00) - to warn that the major web security problem may be 'semantic attacks' rather than traditional denial of service activity or site defacement. 

Most discussion of that lag is anecdotal and detailed studies are just starting to appear. We'll be pointing to particular research in future; for the moment there are perspectives in the discussion of 'trust' within our Security and Consumers guides.

     practice

The disgruntled customer who formerly wrote a personal letter to an organisation's chief executive can now include that letter on an discussion list, from which it's likely to be excerpted or redistributed 'as is'. 

The canny complainant can choose a list that's viewed by journalists; examples in Australia during 2000 and 2001 demonstrate that malicious or merely misunderstood information has been picked up by the mainstream press. As the defamation action noted above proves, information published online can be persistent. Many discussion lists are archived and picked up by search engines: unlike the letter to the editor they don't end up as wrappers for leftover cat food.

Responses to the scope for commercial disinformation (driving down the price of a company's shares) or personal malice have varied. Russell Weaver's cogent paper Defamation Law in Turmoil: The Challenges Presented by the Internet examines particular issues from a traditional legal perspective. There's a more radical - and to us less convincing proposition in Brian Martin's analysis that if you're defamed online the remedy is to use the net to alert people to the truth. If only it was that simple.

For site owners/operators (and for intermediaries such as service providers) some conclusions can be drawn. The nature of the 'new media' means that it can be harder to bury a complaint or to hide consumer-unfriendly policies. Communities of interest can develop online and access online tools such as NetAction's Virtual Activist kit. There's thus some value in responding quickly to feedback and monitoring what's said about your business, government or agency online.

     protest sites

Australia is several years behind the US in establishing 'protest' sites, some featuring the word 'sucks'. A recent survey revealed a US corporate who's who - AOL, American Express, Citibank, Ameritech, Ford, General Motors, Allstate, Microsoft, Monsanto, Nike, Chase, Prudential, WalMart, USWest and United Airlines - with particular corporate demons being shadowed by several sites. Ford for example is criticised by a specialist anti-Ford Web Ring, including the Association of Flaming Ford Owners (AFFO), alleging vehicles tend to self-combust. Some activists have even urged ICANN to establish a global 'sucks' domain space to reflect the 'official' sites. 

Estimates on the proliferation of such sites are problematical, particularly as many are shortlived, but the "anti-attack site" business (keeping pace with the protests) estimates that there are over 5 thousand sites. They're often highly visible, appearing prominently in search engine listings.

Some are little more than a repository for juvenile humour: graffiti, animations of creatures urinating on the corporate logo. Others feature detailed and sometimes persuasive critiques, including 'insider' documentation, and are associated with newsgroups. Some are established by advocacy groups or disgruntled consumers. Others have been set up by unions and aggrieved shareholders.

The effect of such action is contentious. Financial analysts have attributed falling share prices to particular campaigns, noting that some domains claim a regular audience of 20 to 50 thousand visitors and that claims about Nazi connections (Chase Bank). Others appear to have been ineffective. 

Some of the major airlines and financial corporations have successfully litigated for sites to be edited or removed altogether. Dunkin Donuts abandoned the struggle after a year and bought a protest site initially established by a consumer disgruntled over the lack of skim milk. 

The McSpotlight site featured in McDonalds pyrrhic victory over a small group of UK activists who'd accused the fast-food giant exploiting staff and the rainforest. A site critical of pest eradicators Terminix was initially threatened with litigation over the use of the company's trademark but has gained significant media coverage by publishing complaints from unhappy customers and employees, and detailing the company's history of litigation. 

All in all, not good advertising.

There are two perspectives in our Security guide. The cybervandalism page looks at site defacement. The identity theft page explores instances where an individual's identity online is appropriated.


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