Protect Your Company's Good Name Online

What's the first thing you do when you need to buy an expensive appliance or want to check out a new restaurant? According to a 2010 report from the Pew Research Center, 58% of Americans do a Web search first. However, chances are that you can only control a small percentage of the search results for the name of your product, service or employees. With the rise of online reviews and social media, there may be a lot of people talking about you online - but some of those comments may be damaging your company's reputation. And even worse, they may be from some of your own employees! In fact, even if the comments are untrue, owners of forums and social media profiles may ignore requests to take them down.

That's where SocialCheck comes in. We are a full-service reputation management, brand protection and employee screening company focusing on protecting our clients' intellectual property. We use a combination of sophisticated software and human support to scour the Web for online threats to your business. After we compile a full report, coordinating comments from across sites and identifying sources of negative information, we offer clients the option of following up using the services of our affiliated attorneys. Depending on the situation, that could mean a cease-and-desist letter, a demand to remove posts and comments or starting litigation.
 

Business Reputations and the Law

"Goodwill" is more than just a thrift store. Under the law, it's an intangible but clearly evident measurement of a brand's value. This is why shady businesses sometimes choose names that make them sound like branches of the U.S. government or of larger companies - they're trying to harness the public's goodwill toward the larger organization.

The law recognizes that goodwill toward a business is an asset that took time to build, just like a savings account. When someone threatens that asset by intentionally making untrue statements online, you have the right to sue that person for trade libel or product defamation. In other states, this can be called product disparagement, slander of goods or commercial disparagement. In some states, more than one kind of lawsuit is possible: one against the business itself - for example, its creditworthiness - and one against its products or services.

For example, if you've run a successful restaurant in the same town for years, you've built a reputation and goodwill in the region. That reputation and goodwill can't be held in your hand, but they're certainly worth something. If someone decides to start an online rumor that the Health Department is shutting you down, knowing that it's false, you can sue that person to protect your investment.
 

Copyrights, Trademarks and Service Marks

Even more evidence of the value of a brand's reputation can be seen in intellectual property law. Federal law protects trademarks, copyrights and patents as "intellectual property" - ideas with value. Outside of exemptions for "fair use" like satire or brand comparisons, trademarked logos, slogans or other ideas may not be misappropriated. The law recognizes that a famous trademark, copyright or service mark has value, and often requires years of good work and good reputation to build.

Unfortunately, the Internet offers a wide world for trademark and copyright infringers to piggyback on another company's efforts to sell products and services. In essence, this is theft of the hard work the owner did to build the mark or create the copyrighted work. If the product or service is inferior to the one owned by the owner, it can even hurt the original brand in the long run. The law also recognizes the idea of trademark dilution, which is when someone hijacks a famous mark to sell a completely different product, potentially destroying the original company's efforts to build a singular brand.

A variety of online activities infringe trademarks or copyrights. In addition to selling pirated or counterfeit goods, or legitimate goods through unauthorized sites, online infringers might cybersquat on a domain name, attempting to make you pay for your own trademark as a top-level domain. They may launch pay-per-click campaigns by buying your trademark as a keyword to attract Web searchers, then directing them to a competing product. They can falsely associate your trademark by implication with an inferior competitor or a distasteful site that can harm your reputation.

 

Take Back Your Name

You can fight all of these scams and others — but you have to find them first. Trademark law and tort law allow you to directly sue people who are misusing your trademark or spreading lies about your business. Online comments are a bit harder. You can't sue the owner of a website for defamatory comments made by users, although it's not clear whether that protection extends to trademark infringement. But you can ask nicely for the post to be taken down or for the user's information. And if you don't get it, you also have the option to sue a "John Doe" so you can subpoena the information.

Suing over your intellectual property may seem like a big undertaking, but it's an important one too. In fact, you can lose a trademark if you don't use it, and especially if you fail to enforce it. If you demand that an infringer stop using your trademark, but then fail to follow up with legal action within a reasonable period of time, courts can decide that your failure to act constitutes an agreement to the infringing use. That's why it's vital not to sleep on your rights.

Successful businesspeople put a lot of time, money and energy into building their businesses' goodwill. They rely on that goodwill to attract new customers, retain existing customers and get additional funding when it's needed. That's why goodwill is counted on investment balance sheets and protected by law. Don't let defamers and infringers hide behind the anonymity of the Internet - protect your investment.

 

How We Do It

SocialCheck combines the skills of experienced investigators, attorneys and reputation management experts. Of course, we start by scanning the Web for information about your company. To do that, we use sophisticated software capable of running more searches than any human being. Our searches reach past the first two pages of search results (even though most human users don't) and into the "deep Web" — the sites that aren't indexed by search engines. Ironically, many of these are the places where you need scrutiny the most, because some social media sites give users the option to turn off search engine indexing. Many comments about your business are made this way, under the cover of darkness.

To back up these results intelligently, we follow up with manual searches and sifting of results by seasoned investigators. Computer programs take the first step of finding the information, but our human assets will assess the raw data and narrow it down to only the information that's relevant. We also build on the initial computer searches, using human instincts to come up with search terms a computer might not "think" of. When we have the results, we look for patterns in this information, such as repeated IP addresses or usernames, to identify individuals who are spreading negative or false information across multiple sites and then investigate their pedigree. This work generates full reports for the clients to act on as they wish.

Finally, we offer the option to take action when appropriate. What kind of action to take depends on the kind of damage being done and your own wishes. SocialCheck is owned and operated by experienced investigators with attorney contacts. While we certainly see the value of scary cease-and-desist letters, they're far from the only trick up our sleeves. Sometimes, all it takes is a request to a website's operator to take down a third party's post or comment that is demonstrably untrue and defamatory.

But if necessary and appropriate, we have the experience and know the legal firepower to back up requests with litigation. We work with a network of affiliated attorneys and can connect you with the right attorney for your state and legal situation. By filing suit, you're letting infringers know you're serious about protecting the business you worked so hard to build.
 

Contact Us

Like a lot of reputation management and brand protection companies, SocialCheck scours the Web for our clients, including the overlooked but vital "deep Web" sites where many vital word-of-mouth discussions take place. Unlike a lot of competitors, SocialCheck offers interprets the results, and advises on what next steps you need. When you run a business, you stake its success on its reputation, which means loyal employees, intellectual property and goodwill are paramount. Don't take a chance on something so important — let SocialCheck investigate and protect your good name.