As social networking sites and internet blogs continue to increase in both popularity and use, the opportunities for defamatory and libelous actions increase proportionally. Defamation, sometimes called “defamation of character”, is spoken or written words that falsely and negatively reflect on a living person’s reputation. Slander is generally spoken defamation, while ‘libel’ is written. Blogs or social networks in which defamatory statements are written or recorded present several potential sources of liability and recovery for the person whose character was defamed. In cases where the defamation is proved, damages are presumed and often enforced with liberality.

Operators of blogs are generally immune from liability for defamatory statements posted on their websites, as long as they did not contribute to the posting. In 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a listserv moderator and operator of a website which allegedly published defamatory statements provided by a third party was eligible for immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Batzel v. Smith, 2003 US App.LEXIS 12736 (9th Cir. 2003). However, if the online service provider plays an active role in soliciting information from users that leads to the defamatory act, the operator may not be protected by the safe harbor provisions of the CDA. In Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., a federal court ruled on the application of the safe harbor of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The defendant in that case operated a matchmaking website known matchmaker.com. As part of its service, the defendant collected profiles of singles based on an extensive questionnaire. The plaintiff sued Metrosplash because of a false profile of her which an unknown user had posted to the website. The court ruled that by creating the extensive questionnaire, Metrosplash played an active role in developing the information that had been posted. Furthermore, the court ruled that Metrosplash was an information content provider and thus not eligible for the CDA’s safe harbor provided to ” interactive computer services.” Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., Case No. CV 01-0018 DT (CWx) C.D. Cal. 2002) (subsequently reversed by appeals court). While operators of blogs and services are generally immune from such liability, the more active the service is with its member’s, the greater the likelihood of potential liability as a publisher of defamatory materials.

Another potential source of liability is the person who actually posted the defamatory materials. As with more general defamatory statements or materials, a poster can be held personally liable for anything posted which reflects falsely and negatively on a living person’s reputation. Posting false and explicit claims regarding a person will generally be held as defamatory for purposes of liability. However, other issues arise concerning the anonymity of the person posting the information, and if known, the jurisdiction in which they are subject.

Jurisdictional issues may arise in situations where the poster had no reason to expect that the effect of the posting would be felt in a certain jurisdiction. However, in defamation cases jurisdictional disputes are liberally ruled upon in favor of the victim. In Griffis v. Luban, the Minnesota court of appeals ruled that Alabama had jurisdiction over a Minnesota defendant who posted defamatory messages on the Internet. The defendant repeatedly posted messages on an Internet newsgroup attacking the plaintiff’s professional credentials. The plaintiff initially obtained a $25,000.00 default judgment in Alabama, which she was seeking to enforce in Minnesota. The Minnesota court ruled that the Alabama court had properly exercised jurisdiction because the effects of the messages were felt in Alabama and that the defendant should have expected that she would be sued there. An important factor in the ruling was that she had actual knowledge of the effect of the defamatory statements on the Defendant. Therefore, the Minnesota court enforced the $25,000.00 default judgment. Griffis v. Luban, 633 N.W. 2d 548 (Minn Ct. App. 2001).

However, there are cases where courts have refused to allow the exercise of personal jurisdiction based on defamatory statements. In a Pennsylvania case, the court refused to exercise jurisdiction over a New York defendant who had posted defamatory comments about a defendant on an offshore betting website. The court held that since the comments were not specifically directed at Pennsylvania, the court could not exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant. English Sports Betting, Inc. v. Tostigan, C.A. No. 01-2202 (E.D. Pa. 2002).

The problems with bringing defamatory actions based on internet postings largely lie in proving that the defendant actually made the posting. If that connection can be made, a much stronger case can be presented and jurisdictional issues can be tackled. An attorney who is experienced in cyberlaw and internet cases can improve your chances in prevailing in any such case. Without the help of an attorney who can find and connect the evidence, most internet defamation cases will fail for lack of evidentiary sources and experience.

What you should know about forums but were afraid to ask. What’s a forum got to do with it….anyway? Well, plenty actually and not in a good way. When we think about Goldendoodle forums, we should be able to think about a place where one can make doodle friends…share goldendoodle stories with a nice approach..share photos and basically, share common canine information that would be of help to new doodle owners. A forum is also suppose to be a place to meet other doodle owners or others who share similar interests. On the surface, many are just that. However, the reality is, many forums have disturbing motives behind the facade of being a nice place to visit. Many are covered with a smoke screen and many people visit dog forums as a means of possibly finding somewhere to purchase a Goldendoodle or to obtain information about a Goldendoodle, but do not even realize they are being conned by the forum owner/operator and their diehard groupie members , even when it is right before their eyes!

It seems to be a part of human nature to tear another down. In our electronic world where so much content can reach millions in a single day, malicious persons feel empowered through their words whether true or not. People with ulterior motives to seek revenge against another use forums as a way to soothe their media seeking cravings. Many unsuspecting visitors of dog forums do not even realize it when they are duped and conned by these cyber bully, verbal criminals. When dissecting the reality of some Goldendoodle forums, there is a bottom line and that is the almighty dollar. There are two such Goldendoodle forum owner/operators who use their forum in this manner and one of them has been doing it for years…the other one has learned how to master the same game because she, herself, was targeted in the beginning by the other forum owner/operator and has learned how to play the same game by now doing the same thing to others as was done to her. Sad that people stoop to new lows in order to make a profit and a paycheck….but, stoop….they do.

It is always the case that when a business or person begins to grow and becomes successful , there seems to always be more and more people jumping on a bandwagon who feel they are entitled to take that person or business down. Some competitors become uneasy when they believe another has “moved into” their terrirory. As a business grows, they must think of themselves as a “celebrity”. This is because they will now be the target for gossip, rumors and many mythical stories that while hyped up and interesting on a national enquiry level, have no merit of truth to them. Such businesses or persons must just learn to “deal with it”. Or do they? Before we attempt to find out what’s behind the truth at such malicious abuse, you should know that there are newly enacted laws that can and will protect the one being abused over the internet by malicious persons. It was once the belief that cyber bullies could pretty much say and do whatever they wanted inside of forums towards their targeted victim, but times have changed. New laws have been enacted to protect people from malicious persons with ill intent, inside of dog forums or any forum for that matter. This includes building fake websites that causes harm to another in a malicious, slanderous way.

Some believe they can’t do anything about being targeted inside of forums, but think again. One recent example was when a jilted lover went to new levels when she decided the best way to get back at her ex-boyfriend was to create fake pages and advertisements all over the internet making claims he was seeking love in all the wrong places. She also wrote false information about his wife making up horrendous stories and spent countless hours posting the content on as many sites as she could! To my surprise, this story seemed very similar to what my very own sister did to me in 2006. As it happens, this womans’ ex-lover had been her ex for over ten years! But this person still harbored resentment and anger! When phone calls began to pour into their home from women all around the world about his supposesd interest in a pleasurable romp (His ex listed his home address and phone number for people to call, on all sorts of fake websites she built just for him), police were called and the couple turned to an attorney for help with the matter. They were able (Through the help of tracking down the culprits’ IP address and verifying it came from HER computer) to have the woman charged with secondary harassment and a breach of peace. I found this news delightful to my ears! The story was reported on CNN. I didn’t find the story delightul because the woman went to such extremes at ruining someone she had ill will towards, rather I was delighted that Finally, someone who harbored so much hatred towards another person and has done such a terrible thing on the internet to cause massive ruin of a reputation is getting what they deserved! Jail time! Many people believed and possibly still believe that they can hide behind their computers to spew whatever malicious, hateful words they want towards another person over the internet and never get caught! It seems easy enough if you are such a demented type of person who has no life outside of the internet! But times are changing! This type of abuse is making headlines and grabbing the attention of many and people, like myself relish new laws to help protect the innocent!

Thankfully! When I heard about this woman getting charged for being abusive towards another person over the internet in such a horrendous way, it gave me great hope! I for one have been the target of such abuse for years by spiteful, hateful people inside of dog forums who felt the need to create hyped up stories that had no merit, posting lies and ridiculous stories as a means of ruining my reputation and business. Much of it condoned by dog forum owners that are breeders themselves trying to sell their own dogs and being vendictive or jealous due to the rise in competition; other forums allowed vicious postings that slandered us over the years or allowed malicious, slanderous content to be posted by fictitious persons and those sites were either NOT properly moderated or were sites that doodle forum owners charge breeders to advertise on their site and by the site owner/forum operator allowing such nonsense to be posted about their competition (breeders who didn’t advertise and pay them for such) on their forum, it kept money coming in to their own pockets. How did this happen?

Unsuspecting and unwitting potential buyers would buy their dogs from the breeders that paid the forum owner/operator to advertise on their site and the forum/operator deliberately allowed bashings on their forum that specifically targeted supposed “problematic” breeders (including blocking IP addresses of anyone who came to the bashed breeders’ defense or by blocking the IP address of the targeted breeder themselves) to continue because it created a facade of supposed issues the problematic breeder had with their supposed potential customers or past customers. This would then cause unsuspecting potential buyers to bypass those targeted breeders and purchase from the breeders the forum owner/operator claimed were “Top quality” breeders when in fact, they were and are merely breeders who pay the forum site owner/operator to advertise! Many breeders pay to advertise on websites that get alot of internet traffic and they pay through the nose for such listings. We quit wasting our money years ago with this sort of advertisement because we got tired of such site owners getting rich off of our hard work. Quality is nothing more than a personal opinion or in this case, how much you are willing to pay the site owner for advertising! While disturbing in more ways than one, most people don’t take the time to find out whether malicious posted information is true or not. They take the information at face value and believe what they read as “gospel” when it comes to forums. For the life of me, I don’t know why…but they do.

Prior to 2006, we took the brunt of abuse by such forum owners/operators and their groupies who hang out and clan together inside of their forums. We let much of it ride because we knew then and still know now what the truth is and there is no merit to anything posted inside of forums harboring such malicious content. We did send letters to those sites telling them to cease the harassment and to remove the content. Some complied while others pushed the envelope. Over the years, both my husband and I became a target of such slanderous, vicious postings and endured alot of harassment from an estranged family members, who to this day, boldly create fake, abusive websites…company names…user names, etc…just to create smear campaign towards our personal name and business name. Some of the material had been posted for up to a year before we had even discovered it!!! They have gone into hundreds of forums as well as posting their slanderous comments on my articles and business sites, pretending to be various people, using various faked email addresses and fake user names making up slanderous accusations towards us as a person and towards our business. To my surprise, many people inside of the forums actually believe what they write because they do not know that these postings are merely untruthful accusations by my estranged family members! I have been printing out the comments as they are discovered and I have located one family members’ IP address of which has been forwarded to an attorney general’s office.

People who go to such great lengths to destroy a person’s reputation or business and enjoy what they are doing surely have emotional and mental issues. Such malicious content is verbal vandalism. Many celebrities just brush off such nonsense but when the author of such content goes to the extreme of methodically and deliberately ruining someones’ business or reputation, something has to be done to put an end to it. That is where the newly enacted laws comes to play.

For years, I’ve witnessed female entrepreneurs truly succeed (including myself) and watched as others began to pick them apart; criticize them and sometimes trash them all across dog forums to include writing letters to site owners who sell advertisements to breeders around the world, even when the person who was doing all the trashing and criticizing didn’t really know them at all on a personal level….sometimes not even really on a business level. Have you noticed that too? Ironically enough, it is nine times out of ten other women who are doing the criticizing. Instead of supporting each other not only because they are women who are trying to succeed in this sometimes hateful, difficult world, they do their very best at tearing each other down.

As much as I had to admit, I’ve partaken in that sometimes too, but never on the levels that I have seen that has been taken towards me! Much of my own venting has been at trying to defend myself on the internet “kangaroo court” held by nitwits and wackos inside of dog forums and until I recently discovered that people actually CAN BE held legally accountable for what they do or say about others on the internet, I felt I had no other recourse but to try and defend myself from these nutty forum people by writing about it.

But now that times are changing and new laws are taking place, every site that harbors such malicious content can now be held legally accountable and can not only be sued by the person they are harboring information about, but can find themselves being legally charged with second degree harassment and a breach of peace if it can be shown that the site owner deliberately and willfully harbored such slanderous, malicious content without verifying its authenticity before allowing it to remain on their forum for viewing by the general public. Especially content that harbors malicious material that holds the person’s name and address and phone number or other personal information in a slanderous manner. This is a very good thing for many people across the internet who is going through similar situations. I personally first attempt at calling the site owner and asking them to remove the content. Secondly, send them a certified letter and if necessary, have your attorney send them the letter via certified mail. Thirdly, through legal channels if you are not successful in contacting their IP server. I personally filed complaints with their IP servers…their host site servers and if that didn’t work, then of course they have get a personal visit. Now that there are laws to protect a person and business from being maliciously targeted by cowardly, vindictive people, charges can be brought up against those who are so abusive over the internet, once caught! I recommend printing everything you find so that you have evidence before you have it removed from the website, once it is found or discovered. If it’s email, then make sure you print out the header information that shows their IP address. Sometimes people can change their IP address but sometimes they can’t. Having supporting evidence is very important. In my sisters’ case, she changed the email content that satisfied her agenda when I replied to her to stop what she was doing. Instead, she kept the heading of my email and then typed her own words and claimed I wrote them. Because email can be modified and rewritten by the person who claims they received this type of email, this sort of internet evidence doesn’t hold much weight. However, when you can print what has been posted inside of a forum, it has the time and date of when it was posted and if the site owner is legally challenged, they have to produce the IP address of the person who posted the derogatory, slanderous information. This is how the “poster” is identified even if they fake a user name and fake an email address. Most IP addresses remain the same.

I’m very aware of the fact some forum owners “archive” malicious content and then they bury it deep inside of their forum as if the content is now hidden inside of a deep, dark, mysterious cave and they then tell others to “email” them for the links of they are interested in learning about their dirty little secrets (webs of lies and lies) …but we’re catching on to this little game as well. Little are they aware of how many people we have incorporated over time, acting as little gobblins requesting their dirty little secrets…..which is how we have come to know about it and are now writing about it. The dirty games played by vindictive people who have an ulterior motive can be very dark and the lows of which people will stoop at destroying another persons’ reputation and business never cease to amaze me. But the fact is, its very real and I think now that it has been happening to so many people over the internet that now people can actually do something about it, pleases me to no end!

If people are criticizing you as a person or a business over the internet, it’s almost never about you or the business. It’s really all about them. The person writing the insulting content. They felt scorned or hurt or “wronged” and so now they are going to “wrong” YOU, the person or the business. Some want you to pay dearly for it! When a person or business put themselves out there in a BIG way on the internet, just realize there WILL be a backlash from those who are jealous, envious, spiteful or who believe they in some way have been “wronged” by you. I believe it threatens or intimidates people when you as a person or business have the courage to stand out a little bit more than your competitors.

Cyber bullies are always in love with their “amazing accomplishments”. Cyber bullies are incapable of sustaining relationships with others outside the internet, so its of upmost importance they establish friendships inside of forums where they can have shallow friendships even if briefly.

If you are being attacked by a cyberbully inside of a forum, there are things you can do to help yourself and your sanity. It’s very frustrating being attacked by people who can create fake email addresses, user names and personal names and use their pen to cause personal harm. It is more frustrating because it’s hard to take immediate action against these persons.

The solution for getting over the fear of criticism from becoming larger in business or by becoming well known over the internet, is to come from a place of compassion and purpose. Compassion because I believe that deep down, people who go inside of dog forums and write content that is malicious and that is written to cause harm to the targeted person they are writing about, are really writing the content because they have stuff going on inside of their own lives that they feel is over-whelming or its something they can’t control. By writing and targeting someone else inside of a dog forum, they are able to generate a feeling of sympathy by people who don’t know them and by people who are not aware that the content they have written is completely not true! That their content is just a facade of lies upon lies. Their own feelings of inadequacy or jealousy or emotional issues that they have not been able to resolve all come into play. So really, the people who go into forums seeking such shallow sympathy are very sad people, indeed.

Their personal issues are not your problem or your issues, so ignore them if you can and with compassion, especially if you’ve been there too at one point. And Purpose. When you stay focused on the purpose for your business (helping OTHERS), then anything else becomes secondary, even if it hurts sometimes. Trust me, when I found out my very own sister was going into dog forums as well as other places and writing nothing but lies upon lies about me, my family and my business, I was dumbfounded! I had not personally seen her since 1996! I had not personally spoken to her in person since 1999 and suddenly in 2006 I find out she has been spreading malicious lies like a fire out of control, one after the other about me and going to the extreme of extremes by posting fake websites using my name, my phone number, stealing photos from my personal website
of not only me but my dogs…..going into an ancestry forum and writing malicious content about our family and the list goes on…yes, it hurt me! It hurt my business as well. People out there don’t know the content they’ve read and posted by another is nothing but lies and it hurt me on a personal level because she is, even if estranged from the family, my own sister. But you have to remember that your personal success as a person can’t be removed by malicious postings. None of what my sister said took away from all the merit badges, the awards and my success achieved through out my life! None of what my sister said took away from the fact that over the years, I’ve built up a very large list of happy consumers since 1996 and none of what someone claims inside of a forum can take that fact away. My business has been built from a life long list of skills, sweat and hard manual labor! My business has been built from my own personal knowledge. Those are things, that no matter what someone says with words, can take away. You have to remember that angry words can’t actually remove all of the skills and knowledge you have come to know and learn. They are, after all, just angry words. My business which has served the general public since 1996 in a very successful way continues to grow because of my own determination to succeed and because I am doing something that I firmly believe in. My expertise has helped hundreds of thousands of people across the internet and my web site host has the tracking numbers to prove it! My personal knowledge and my expertise in my field has served the general public since 1996 for free even though I myself pay for my website out of my own pocket. By my serving others, not by hurting others, allows ME and my business to shine even through the darkest paths some people desire to put in my way.

In a battle between fear of criticism and of helping others, inner courage to continue to succeed even when it seems the odds are against you, will take anyone through the fear and into the path of doing the right thing, despite what snippy people will say inside of dog forums or anywhere else for that matter. Some people are just plain bad and those people need to be hit back when they hit you. Somebody has to hit bad people back and this takes the courage to do so. I don’t mean this in a literal sense of hitting. If someone takes verbal swipes at another person as a deliberate attempt at trying to ruin them as a person or as a business, the targeted person has to have the courage and inner strength to hit them back. I’m not afraid to hit back. I don’t appreciate being verbally hit by bad people nor will I stand by being verbally attacked by bad people who enjoy writing lie after lie as a means of revenge for something they feel I’ve done to them or they seem to enjoy writing fictitious information that doesn’t even describe me in any way shape or form, which by the way, has been blown so out of proportion that I’m still waiting for BIG FOOT to appear or an alien ship to land in my front yard! I’m all about being positive and helping others, not taking them down or taking swipes at people who really deserve swipes, but I’m also not going to stand by and watch nasty people take untrue pot shots at me or the business I’ve worked for 11+ years building nor do I think anyone should stand by allowing bad people to do horrible things to them whether in person or on the internet. Courage and strength is a must to fight these sort of terrible people back. A person will always be successful if you love what you do and as Donald Trump said in his book, you have to have knowledge to succeed in something you love to do. If you don’t love what you do, you won’t take the time to acquire the knowledge it takes to succeed. I didn’t just wake up one day and think that breeding dogs would be interesting. All of my life I have had a huge heart for animals. All of my book reports in grade school was about dogs and cats. In the 5th grade (and I still have what I wrote that my mother saved for me all these years) I wrote an essay about living on a farm and owning multiple animals and raising them and taking care of them. I wrote, as a fifth grader, what I thought my life was going to be as an adult, and I wrote that I would be completely surrounded by animals. What I do has been a life long inner part of me. I didn’t jump on any bandwagon. I didn’t follow in anyone’s footsteps. My personal page at http://www.goldendoodleworld.com is all about what I have spent years researching, doing, learning and understanding. Bad people will always want to try to take away what someone else has no matter what their reasoning is because bad people DON’T reason. They don’t function on an intelligent level nor do they achieve much in their life. Inner hatred has a way of tearing a person apart. Inner hatred has a way of preventing people from moving forward in life in a positive or successful way. My sister and people like her who spend all of their time tearing others apart inside of dog forums or any forum for that matter, are bad people. The bottom line is, the crummy people will go and the the yummy people will stay. That’s all that matters. As Dr. Seuss once said: “Those Who Mind Don’t Matter and Those Who Matter Don’t Mind.

About the Author:

Dee Gerrish has been a private, professional breeder for 12 years as of 2008; She was a respite and foster care provider in Mannheim, Germany and won many community awards for her dedicated service. Dee has written very popular Goldendoodle articles that are listed across the internet.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/forums-articles/what-you-should-know-about-forums-and-were-afraid-to-ask-579549.html

Divorce by You Tube

When UK actress and playwright Trisha Walsh-Smith was served with divorce papers last year by her husband, 74 year old Broadway bigwig Phillip Smith, the results were theatrical.

The ditched drama queen created a vitriolic video and posted it on video hosting site You Tube. The six minute online rant, Walsh-Smith says; ‘We never had sex. He said it was because he had high blood pressure. I accepted that. Then last year I found Viagra, porn movies and condoms.’

She also flips through their wedding album and points out family members as nasty, bad or evil. But the video done her more damage than good. Watching it, you realize that the actress is not only seeing red, but she is deeply, and tragically sad.

Ex Effect

Tired of being dumped by losers. US blogger Tessa Martin created a blog called ‘Ex girlfriend’s revenge with the subtitle ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. Although she doesn’t name the men, she does post their pictures, with the eyes blacked out. Among the exes she exposes are a male model who made her feel the firmness of his butt on their first date, a part time lifesaver, who ‘moonlighted as a complete pervert’, and ‘burrito-guy’, her first boyfriend, who dumped her via his best friend. But mostly her rants concern ‘The Beast’, who she discovered was getting married to someone else.

‘I thought of going big… Calling the venue, pretending to be the bride and telling them the wedding is off. How I dream of perfect revenge,’ she blogs.

But possibly the most popular website is dontdatehimgirl, where women can anonymously post names, pics and addresses of ex-boyfriends. The site names and shames thousands of men – and one of them struck back. Todd Hollis claimed that the site allows users to post lies about him anonymously, such as that he was gay, had fathered several children, suffered from herpes and gave a girl a STD. His lawsuit was dismissed on grounds of free speech.

Then there was the STD All-stars blog. Its author, in New York explained; ‘I started this blog because I contracted herpes and I’m pissed off. If you are free of STDs, you should read this blog as a cautionary tale. If you are among the inflicted, maybe you would like to use this blog as a means of venting your frustration. Do you know someone who is knowingly spreading disease? Send me a picture, I’ll be happy to post it.’

She was eventually forced to shut down her blog after one of the male subjects of her story complained.

Sandra Prior – About the Author:

For more articles on sexual health subscribe to Sandra Prior’s online newsletter at http://intercell.shacknet.nu.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/dating-articles/is-evenge-sweet-534113.html

User-generated content (or “Participatory Media” as some call it) can be a great way to boost the value of your website, and the traffic that’s driven to it. Many website owners have already found that developing online communities greatly increases their financial bottom lines. Sometimes, as has been the case with YouTube, user-generated content can even be a great business model in itself.

But user-generated content can also be a great source of risk and exposure. Again, there’s probably no better example of this than YouTube. YouTube was sued by the Viacom studio in 2007 for $1 billion in damages, for allegedly distributing Viacom’s copyrighted materials without permission.

If you understand the risks associated with user-generated content, you can take steps to reduce your exposure and protect your online assets, while at the same time increasing the value of your website.

What is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content is a broad term that includes any material that a website user posts on the website for others to see. This can include not only blog comments, but also pictures, videos, articles, or anything else that a user might post in a forum or bulletin board section of your website, or as part of their own personal profile on the website.

What are the Risks with User-Generated Content, and How Can I Address Them?

There are a number of legal issues that you will need to become familiar with if you permit or promote user-generated content on your website.

a. Intellectual property infringement. There are two primary types of intellectual property infringement issues that you should be aware of. The first is copyright infringement. Key elements of liability include knowledge of the infringing activity, inducing or contributing the improper conduct, and attaining a direct financial benefit in the infringing activity when you have the ability to supervise the direct infringer.

Copyright holders generally try to enforce their rights by means of “takedown notices” that are sent in accordance with the requirements a particular Federal law (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). You’ll have to decide what position to take once you receive takedown notices. Do you evaluate each and respond notice as you feel appropriate? Or do you simply honor all takedown notices immediately? It’s a balance between avoiding legal risk of a lawsuit by those who claim to hold a copyright to the material that someone else posted, versus possibly alienating your users if you aren’t giving any consideration to their “fair use” rights in that content.

Trademark law prevents the use of trademarks of others in a manner that creates a likelihood of confusion about the source of goods or services or in a manner that dilutes the value of the trademark. User-generated content sometimes falls afoul of trademark law.

b. Defamation. You should also be aware that there is potential liability for allowing users to post defamatory statements about others on your website. There is a Federal law (The Communications Decency Act) which can provide some protection against defamation claims based on what your users do on your website, but the scope of the protection is still somewhat uncertain, so you should not ignore the possibility of claims against you based on user generated content.

c. Obscenity and Child Pornography. The Federal laws that provide protections to website owners generally exclude protections for obscene materials that appear on such websites, even if the materials are posted by users themselves.

How Can I Reduce My Risks?

One common technique for a website operator to reduce their risks of legal liability for user generated content is to not actively monitor the user activities on the website. While this may seem counter-intuitive, the relevant Federal laws provide a greater degree of protection (through a so-called “safe harbor”) for passive web services that do not actively manage or supervise user content.

If your business model requires you to actively monitor user activity on your website, then you may wish to retain a third party to actually conduct the monitoring. The relationship with the third party should be properly structured as an independent contractor relationship, which will likely include giving the third party some degree of control over the user generated content, in order to avoid you being held liable for the third party’s actions.

You should also have a mechanism in place for promptly responding to legitimate complaints about user-generated content. These complaints may come from other users themselves (another reason to nurture your web-based communities; if the members are loyal to your website, they’ll be likely to flag any improper or possibly illegal user-generated content).

It is very risky to allow anonymous visitors to post content (particular pictures or video content). You should therefore plan to prepare and use comprehensive agreements that submitting users must agree to. At a minimum, these user agreements should state that users are prohibited from engaging in any conduct that is illegal or would give rise to any legal liabilities, or that otherwise interferes with the operations of the site. In order to qualify for the Federal law safe harbors, the agreement must also state that repeat offenders will have their website user accounts terminated.

Another solution may be to use a third party service for the user generated content. By this, we mean allowing users to post direct links to, or by using “plug-in” players for, videos that are hosted on YouTube, MetaCafe, Vimeo, or any of the other services available. You are less likely to receive the takedown notices – since the content isn’t actually hosted by your website, the notices would be sent to the entity actually providing the videos. But you also lose control over whether the videos are actually taken down, and you aren’t the sole source for that user generated content – people can also view it by going directly to the hosting entities website, and other people are likely to link directly to that other site as well. Again, it’s a balancing act between your business objectives and the legal risks.

Other Issues to Consider. Apart from the purely legal issues, if you make a strong push to user generated content then you’ll have to consider bandwidth issues as well. If there’s a chance that any particular post will generate a very large amount of traffic to your website, you should have a plan for what to do if the traffic crashes the server, or exceeds that bandwidth that you are paying your hosting company for. You may want to consider capping the amount each registered user can upload in a day or month.

The possibilities for user-generated content to boost your website are great, as are the risks. If you take steps to understand the legal issues and reduce your risks, then you be able to maximize your business gains while still protecting your online assets.

Jeremy Gislason – About the Author:

Discover how to protect yourself & your business from the devastating financial and security risks you face every day your website is online here: http://www.ProtectYourOnlineAssets.com

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/reducing-the-risks-of-usergenerated-content-676409.html

Public relations expert Justine McGuiness is suing Mirror Group Newspapers because of an article that appeared in the People magazine in October 2007. Justine was supposed to be an advocate on behalf of the McCanns to raise money to aid in the search for their daughter. The article claimed that she overcharged the McCanns for expenses and in turn it cost the family $51,000 of their funds that had been raised. The story claimed that she was charging them for things that she was not entitled to receive, and inflating her overtime hours far beyond what she was supposed to be working. She has stated that since the story it has caused defamation of character and embarrassment. She said this has hurt her job considerably and caused a lot of problems for her.

After the story appeared her reputation was tarnished because people did not want to hear what she had to say, and assumed she was doing something illegal because this was a story heard all over the world. It put everything she did in jeopardy, and her honesty and integrity were continuously questioned. She claims that she would never go out and do something like this to rob money from a very worthwhile and profitable cause. She has complained to the newspaper, but yet they refuse to do anything or offer any type of apology. The newspaper fully stands behind what they said, and it was published in other media as well.

This story was not just something that happened and then nobody heard any more about it. It was a story that was widely publicized for quite some time, and for someone who was supposed to be supporting the cause to do what was done was seen to be inexcusable. If she did not do anything wrong, then there should have been no reason for her to stop working on the fundraising efforts. People think that if someone is fully supportive of a cause and believes that they are doing the right thing, then there should be no reason whatsoever to stray away from the search.

She should have stayed with the McCann’s and helped them continue their search and fund raising efforts, but instead she walked away and decided ‘this is not for me’. Why would anyone walk away from helping a family with their charity pr, after they had put so much effort into the cause? It just doesn’t make any sense and perhaps someone found her out? In time the answer will reveal itself, and the truth will be known.

Rakesh Gaikwad – About the Author:

The SPA Way is an award winning charity pr agency

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/lawsuit-over-libel-825027.html

Introduction

Some groups refer to it as the Matthew Shepard Act while others like to call it the Local Law enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA). Both titles refer to a piece of legislation that was designed to protect members of certain communities that may be targets of hate based crime. The paper will look into the details of the Act, the motivations for passing the Act and other details surrounding its implementation.

What is entailed in the Act

This Act was passed in order to give the Department of Justice the mandate to deal with cases involving violence that is motivated by certain biases. Usually, these are the types of crimes that are committed on the basis of disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, color, perceived or actual race. The Justice Department is given the mandate to either work hand in hand with local jurisdictions in cases where that respective group does not display that they actually have the ability to deal with this or in order to assist state jurisdictions. This Department is supposed to have an upper hand in the process prosecuting and investigating cases caused by such biases. (Anti Defamation League, 2008)

Through this Act, local governments are also empowered to deal with the latter category of crimes if they have been committed by juveniles. This is possible through grants that are meant to assist in the process of training law enforcement officers here or during the process of prosecuting such officers.

Reasons behind the LLEHCPA

The reason behind the passage of this Act was that violent crimes generally demand special attention. However, because of the overall effect of hate crimes, then there I a need for special legislation in this area. Not only do hate crimes cause physical injury, but they also create scenarios in which different groups in society are divided. It breaks down the fabric of society by making certain communities full of fear. Such types of violence are not just motivated by financial needs; they are usually done in order to tell members of that chosen community that they will not be accepted by that society. Additionally, when a person is a victim of bias motivated crime, then chances are that they will feel unprotected by their society, they may also fell sidelined and particularly vulnerable. (ADL, 2007)

This Act came against the backdrop of crime Statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the year before the passage of this Act, it was found that the greatest percentage of hate based crimes were against the individuals with different races. The second highest category was those crimes motivated by religious differences and the third category was against people with different sexual orientations. Overly, these statistics revealed that there was still much that had to be done to combat hate crimes thus propelling legislators to act against such biases.

The importance of the Local law enforcement hate crimes prevention act

This Act is important in ascertaining that state and local authorities have been given the power to deal with these bias motivated crimes. Federal groups are incorporated in dealing with these crimes in order to reinforce justice and effectiveness through greater expertise in investigative processes. Additionally, federal authorities’ involvement is meant to relieve local authorities from being overburdened by these types of cases. (Stout, 2007)

The reason behind increasing support for this legislation by certain interest groups is the capacity and the levels of hate crimes committed against certain individuals in society. This is particularly the case for certain categories of people who had not yet been included in the federal hate crimes laws. These groups included;

* Disability
* Sexual orientation
* Gender identity
* Gender

It should be noted that prior to this Act, only a narrow definition of victims of hate crimes was considered. In this case, the only groups recognized were religion, national origin, color, ethnicity or race.

The purpose of the Hate Crime prevention Act was to expand the definition or the categories of people who may qualify as victims of hate crimes in the eyes of the law. Additionally, because the legislation is also designed to assist local authorities, then chances are that it will prevent occurrence of hate crimes through the rigorous training and interventions proposed in the Act. (Human Rights Campaign, 2007)

It should be noted that a high percentage of people were motivated to consider hate crimes as a likely issue owing to the fact that this category of crimes are usually quite severe. In fact no single person should ever tolerate being harmed, brutalized, beaten, attacked or hurt in any way just because of what or who they are. This is one of the reasons why the legislations stirred up a lot of reactions from various interest groups.

Besides these, it should be noted that the prevention of hate crimes dates back to as far back as the nineteen sixties. At that time, the issue of race was particularly sensitive and many violence based crimes were committed against racial minorities. Consequently, it became necessary for civil rights groups to rise to the occasion by speaking out against these forms of violence. This was the reason why there were certain movements that occurred in that era. In the year 1968, legislation was passed to prevent such hate based crimes. Ever since that time, the definitions of violence based crimes began increasing to a point where a substantial majority of individuals who were commonly affected by such crimes were included in the definition.

However, with the passage of time, violence against people with different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender have become increasingly common. This has caused wide concerns from a series of stakeholders thus necessitating the Matthew Sheppard Act. This also means that there is a need to create a situation in which most of the people who may be future victims are protected by the legislation.

The public’s reaction to the legislation

Numerous individuals have demonstrated their support for the legislation. Some of them emanate from political groups, civic rights organizations, religious group and many others. President George Bush was one of the many supporters of this Bill. The Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Churches were also some of the religious groups that demonstrated their support for this legislation. Additionally, the International Association of chiefs of Police also showed their support for this piece of legislation. Additionally, many groups such as the National Disability Rights Network, The Interfaith Alliance, The National District Attorney’s Association and well known attorney General Dick Thornburgh have demonstrated their support of this Act. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

Besides individual endorsements by numerous groups, one cannot ignore the fact that the overall public usually supports legislations designed to combat hate crimes. This is something that was ascertained through opinion polls. In 2007, the Hart Group; a research based company found that almost all subgroups within the electorate supported legislations designed to combat hate crimes. These subgroups included certain categories that were normally considered as very conservative. For instance, fifty six percent of all republicans support this legislation. Also, sixty three percent of evangelical Christians threw their weight behind laws that would allow inclusion of persons with transgender identity and differing sexual orientation.

In terms of racial support, it appears as though almost all races support this legislation. For instance, the same research group found that in that year, close to seventy four percent of the entire white respondents demonstrated their support for the bill. Additionally, a similar percentage of African Americans threw their weight behind the Bill while seventy two percent of Latinos supported this Act. (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2007)

A Gallup Poll conducted in the same year also wanted to find out what people thought about the expansion of this legislation to include other categories of individuals who had not been considered as serious victims of hate crimes. It was found that a substantial percentage of people felt that including persons with differing sexual orientation and transgender identities in this category was supported by close to sixty eight percent of all Americans within the country.

The Kaiser family Foundation also conducted its own research and found that about seventy three percent of the public supports this Bill. The latter research was conducted during the month of November 2007. Additionally, the Lake Snell Perry & Associates group found that sixty eight percent of the public believe that persons with transgender identities should be included in prevention of hate crime laws. Given this overwhelming support, then one can see just how serious this problem of hate crimes is in the public arena.

The Status of the LLEHCPA

In the third month of the year 2007, the local law enforcement hate crimes prevention act was introduced into the house by two major legislators i.e. Republican Mark Kirk while the Democrat legislator was John Conyers. The House decided to approve this Act by an overwhelming vote of two hundred and thirty seven votes against the neighs who were one hundred and eighty votes. Twenty five percent of the yes votes were Republicans with the rest falling to the democrat group.

In the Senate, the bill was introduced during the next month i.e. the month of April. At that time, Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republican Gordon Smith were the ones who introduced this Bill into the Senate. Also, there were forty bipartisan co sponsors. Additionally, this was an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that now became known as the Matthew Sheppard Act.

In the month of September during 2007, it was found that sixty against thirty nine members of the Senate voted for closure of this debate on the legislation. In accordance with this, the LLEHCPA was added into the Department of Defense Act. (Arams, 2007)

In the final version of the Bill, the issue of the hate crimes provision was not included. This was as a result of the opponents in the house who did not support this provision. There was a veto threat made by the white house that caused this kind of reaction. Additionally, there were many Republicans who opposed the passage of the legislation and they were highly responsible for causing this poor turnout in the voting system. Additionally, the provision was also affected by certain Iraq related interests. Consequently, most of the assertions made with regard to the latter group caused dwindling support for the legislation. Additionally, certain representatives felt that military personnel would be adversely affected in terms of their pay if they did not pay any attention to the veto threat that had been issued by President Bush. Consequently, all these factors resulted in poor performance of the Bill thus causing it not to be passed by members of the House.

Through this legislation, all legitimate human beings will be accorded the same rights as those who may not belong to their group. They also have the right to be heard and to be protected by the law just like all other individuals.

As of 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation asserted that there are approximately seven thousand, one hundred and sixty three hate crimes committed at that time. Besides that, they also claimed that fourteen percent of these crimes were all based on sexual orientation. It is also a worrying trend that the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not collect statistics based on crimes committed against persons with differing gender identity. Consequently, one cannot assert the extent to which these crimes are prevalent in society. (The Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007)

It is should also be noted that there are many hate crimes that may not be reported to law enforcement authorities. Part of the reason for this is that victims may not be very sure about state support when it comes to protection of their rights. Consequently, most of them see no point in reporting those cases. Additionally, others may fear judgment from the people around them. These are all reasons that propelled the discussion, debate and support of the Matthew Shippard Bill.

It is also important to note that hate crimes have certain peculiar characteristics that make them particularly sensitive. This also forces various groups to give them particular attention. First of all, hate crimes are normally committed randomly. It is normally difficult for law enforcement
officials to look for patterns of hate crimes or areas where they will occur in the future. This kind of trend is not prevalent in other types of legislation. Also, the potential perpetrators of hate crimes do not fit the typical criminal profile. Most of them maybe emanating from other categories. Consequently, society should look for ways in which they can minimize this through institution of better laws. However, one should not conclude that hate crimes cannot be prevented at all; they simply take differing approaches form the typical methods.

Opposition against the LLEHCPA/ Matthew Shepard Act

While a substantial number of people support the latter Act, there are still many more who oppose it. Most of the people who fight it are conservative groups that refuse to accept the fact that society is changing. These are mostly religious groups that may be interested in maintaining the status quo. Such groups usually believe that persons with unconventional sexual orientation or gender identity are not behaving morally. Consequently, by protecting their rights, the state will be legitimizing their actions.

In fact, the New York Blade reported that the Traditional Values Coalition chairman Reverend Louis Sheldon asserted that the hate crimes bill would a platform against which people who acted in accordance with strict religious teachings were investigated and persecuted. He believed that business owners, pastors and business persons would be turned into criminals because they are likely to depict signs of supporting such values.

The sentiments carried forward by these religious groups have also been held by other political groups. These are usually the house of representatives that are emanating from the conservative side. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

In responses to these sentiments, many gay rights movements have asserted that the law is treating them unfairly. They have claimed that the law protects pastors and other religious leaders to preach hatred in the pulpit yet the same law does not recognize the rights of those people who are targeted by such moral ideals.

One can assert that these two sides gave very radical sentiments. However, there are still certain things that have to be tackled with regard to these issues. The people who oppose this piece of legislation are those ones who are founded on the issue of fear. They need to realize that there is indeed nothing to be afraid of. Additionally, there is a need for the gay rights participants to consider the fact that religious groups are not their enemies. Instead, they need to look for more sober methods of voicing their issues rather than confrontational politics.

Details about the legislation

In the month of May 2007, the Senate in its first session debated on the Local law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The major objective of the Act was stated as “provision of assistance to local jurisdictions, stage jurisdictions and natives by the Federal government in the prosecution to hate crime”

Section 2 of the Act classifies hate crime as a definition that is contained in section sixteen and title eighteen of the US Code. Hate crime in this Act also refers to a similar term that is contained in the Violent Crime and law Enforcement Act of 1994; this is in number 280003 (a) of that Act. Additionally, this section of the Act defines the term ‘local’ as used on the title of the legislation as any parish, village, township, city, county or town. (Arams, 2007)

Section 3 of the legislation defines the intricate issues surrounding the Act. In other words, it looks into the assistance to be provided to state, local and tribal enforcement officials. Part (a) of section three examines one form of assistance which considers non-financial assistance. In this case, there is reference to the general assistance that local, state or tribal law enforcement agencies are entitled to upon request from the Attorney General. Here, the latter group can either be aided in the technical, prosecutorial or forensic aspects of the law only when the crime under consideration is a crime of violence, it is a crime under the local, tribal or state law or it is motivated by biases on religion, place of origin, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, color or race of the victim.

This latter section also gives priority to certain areas. For instance, it is clearly stated that priority will be given to rural areas that lack adequate finances to tackle this issue. Besides this, crimes that have been committed by perpetrators in two States or more will have greater priority.

Part (b) of section three considers the financial aspect of the Act i.e. the issuance of Grants, in this regard, persons who are entitled to grants are those ones who are having difficulties investigating or prosecuting these cases. Usually, the category considered for this grants may either be tribal, local or state law enforcement agencies. (Arams, 2007)

Additionally, the process of implementing this part of the legislation relates to the office of justice programs as specified in the subsection. The latter office ought to cooperate with grantees in order to ascertain that the following groups affected by these concerns are attended to.

* Schools
* Colleges
* Community groups
* Universities
* Particular groups
* Etc

All this will go a long way in ensuring that the local infrastructure is made so as to create better ways of handling the issue.

Section three subsection (b) also looks at some of the details surrounding applications for these grants in paragraph 3. All the law enforcement agencies mentioned above are supposed to adhere to all the requirements made by the Attorney General during the application process. Besides the latter, they are also supposed to submit their application within a period of sixty days from the time which the attorney general chooses to describe in the law stated above.

Some of the requirements of the grants as specified in this subsection include; the existence of extra ordinary circumstances that would really necessitate the grant. Secondly, applicants need to show that they lack the resources to either investigate or prosecute those crimes on their own. Also, law enforcement agencies must show that they have engaged in intense consultation with non profit or non-governmental organizations that specialize in the issue of hate crime. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

Another stringent requirement during the process of application of this grant is the non existence or inadequacy of other nongovernmental organizations’ grants in handling hate crimes. The reason behind this is to ascertain that the grants supplement and not supplant one another. Lastly, the deadline for approval or rejection of these grants is outlined at thirty business days after reception of the application. All single jurisdictions cannot receive more than one hundred thousand dollars within the period of one year. The appropriations of these grants are supposed to be five million US dollars within any fiscal year.

Section four of the Act specifies the Grant program. In other words, it looks at some of the groups that have the power to authorize these grants. The Office of Justice Programs is the one given this mandate and it operates under the Department of Justice Programs. Additionally, care should be taken to ascertain that there are indeed adequate reforms available to deal with these.

Section size of the Legislation looks at the prohibition of hate crimes. Here, the Act describes some of the punishments that an individual will face in case they are found guilty of such offences. In Subsection one of the Act, anyone who may be found guilty of causing body harm to another individual willfully will be prosecuted and charged for their crime. In other words, when someone uses an incendiary device, a firearm, fire or actual harm to another owing to their color, race or any of the latter mentioned categories, then they are liable to imprisonment for a period of not greater than ten years or they are required to pay up a fine.

In this section of the Act, directions are given on what to do in case a victim dies as a result of these crimes. It is stated that the criminal may be susceptible to severing a life sentence. Additionally, the latter punishment is also plausible in the event that the crime constitutes kidnapping or it entails certain forms of sexual abuse or attempts to do the latter.

Section six of the Act also defines some of the terms used in the Act, in other words, an incendiary device carries the same meaning as that asserted in sections 232 of this Act. The word firearm refers to the meaning created in section nine hundred and twenty one of the constitution. Gender identity in this section of the constitution refers to the perceived or actual gender characteristics of a certain individual. (US Department of Justice, 2008)

It should also be noted that in section six, there are specifications of the circumstances under which evidence may be expressed. Evidence in hate crime can only be admissible in court if it found that that evidence relates specifically to the case under consideration. However, when a witness has to be impeached, then these rules do not necessarily apply to him or her.

Section seven of the Act looks at the severability of its application. If it has been found that the person to who the latter amendment has been applied is not treated constitutionally, then all these requirements will not be deemed relevant with reference to that person.

Conclusion

The Matthews Sheppard Act 2007 was proposed in order to amend certain sections of previous hate crime laws. The most notable amongst them is the incorporation
of persons with disability, gender identity or sexual orientation into the ACT. The second aspect is with regard to assistance offered to local law enforcement agencies by the attorney general.

Reference

ADL (2007): Hate Crime Sentencing Act, retrieved from http://www.adl.org accessed on 5th November 2008

Stout, D. (2007): House Votes To Expand Hate Crime protections, The New York Times, 3rd May 2008

Human Rights Campaign (2007): The local Law Enforcement hate Crimes Prevention Act, Free Press

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (2007): Hate Crimes protections Timeline, retrieved from http://www.thetaskforce.org accessed on 5th November 2008

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (2007): Hate Crime Statistics, retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov accessed on 5th November 2008

Arams, J. (2007): House Passes Extended Hate Crimes Bill, Guardian Unlimited, 3rd March

Anti Defamation League (2008): Hate Crime statutes by State, associate Press

US Department of Justice (2008): Hate Crime Legislation, retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov accessed on 5th November 2008

About the Author:

Author Carolyn Smith is associated with ResearchPapers247.Com which is a global Research Papers and Term Papers Writing Company. If you would like help in Research Papers and Term Paper Help you can visit Custom Essays> and Custom Research Papers> or Term Paper Help>

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/criminal-articles/the-law-enforcement-hate-crimes-prevention-act-1924510.html

This article will discuss the variety of attacks and how they can be mitigated by the internet professionals adherence to basic internet security protocols. Jonathan Hawfield of Texas Matrix states “While attacks cannot be prevented, using these techniques can shield the internet professional from physical threats as well as harmful personal or business defamation.”

Internet Defamation
All too often a competitor or personal enemy will exploit the business information of a victim to threaten, harass, or defame an internet professional via review websites such as Rip-off Report.com or other common business review websites. Once harmful material is published, it often is difficult, expensive, and sometimes impossible to remove.

Internet Threats
Many CyberStalkers often use commonly available public records systems to obtain personal information such as property tax records, telephone numbers, home addresses, as well as relatives information on their intended victim. This information in the past was obtained by professional investigators at great expense, but is now available in one easy search for as little as $29.95 from many online services.

Client Theft and Harassment
Unethical business competitors of internet professionals often use DomainNameTools.com to monitor a web host. They gain the domain names of your clients which they then contact to defame, harass, or steal from the web host. Often clients do not easily fall for such tactics, however it creates a great embarrassment to the web host.

Solutions
Do not personally identify yourself in concert with your internet company on your website or social networking mediums. If you must give some identification, do not use your full name, or perhaps even adopt a common retail security tactic such as using a nickname.

Do not use your personal cell phone or home office phone for internet business. It is wiser to use a dedicated voip number for calls and faxes. Also, do not use your personal email address to contact anyone in relation to your internet business.

Do not use your home address or physical office address in published information about your internet business. P.O. Boxes are perfectly acceptable and quickly becoming the new standard among internet professionals.

Do not use your business email address or regular blog user screen name when commenting on other blogs or social media. These are easily tracked via search engines and can create issues far beyond the date of your posting.

Do not use your twitter or facebook page for both personal communication and business communication. Keep them completely separate to insure personal anonymity.

The above are some simple security guidelines that are easily modified to fit a particular operation by an internet professional. No longer are you able to rely on internet anonymity. Using these suggestions may not only save you thousands of dollars in revenue, but hours of hard work, and peace of mind.

About the Author:

Jonathan Hawfield is a CyberSecurity consultant for Texas Matrix. For further knowledge and resources visit http://texasmatrix.com

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/internet-professionals-and-personal-security-1827633.html

INTRODUCTION:

With the day to day evolution of human mind , the modes of committing crime are also drastically changing . Criminals are getting smarter day by day and are applying there minds in this context to commit crime and escape without getting caught. With the advent of computers no one thought that it will become a mode or source of committing crime . Charles Babbage who is well known as the father of computer would not have dreamt that the machine he is giving the world may become a source of crime and would ever influence the society in a negative way.

Whenever we talk about cyber crime we can make out that its something related to a wrong done were a computer system is involved .

The term ‘cyber crime’ is a wrongly applied name. This term has nowhere been defined in any statute /Act passed or enacted by the Indian Parliament. The concept of cyber crime is not radically different from the concept of conventional crime. Both include conduct whether act or omission, which cause breach of rules of law and counterbalanced by the sanction of the state. Though cyber crimes is a new breed of crimes which came into being just after the advent of the computers and the scenario has become more worse with the influence of internet in our day to day life.

CONVENTIONAL CRIME-

Crime is a social and economic phenomenon and is as old as the human society. Crime is a legal concept and has the sanction of the law. Crime is defined as “a legal wrong that can be followed by criminal proceedings which may result into punishment.”. A crime may be said to be any conduct accompanied by act or omission prohibited by law and consequential breach of which is visited by penal consequences.

CYBER CRIME:

Cyber crime is the latest and perhaps the most complicated problem in the cyber world. “Cyber crime may be said to be those species, of which, genus is the conventional crime, and where either the computer is an object or subject of the conduct constituting crime. In general cyber crime may be defined as “ unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or target or both”.

The computer may be used as a tool in the following kinds of activity- financial crimes, sale of illegal articles, pornography, online gambling, intellectual property crime, e-mail spoofing, forgery, cyber defamation, cyber stalking. The computer may however be a target for unlawful acts in the following cases- unauthorized access to computer/ computer system/ computer networks, theft of information contained in the ,electronic form,

e-mail bombing, salami attacks, logic bombs, Trojan attacks, internet time thefts, web jacking, theft of computer system, physically damaging the computer system.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND CYBER CRIME-

There is apparently no distinction between cyber and conventional crime as both the crimes results into some sort of loss to one of the parties. However on a deep introspection we may say that there exists a fine line of demarcation between the conventional and cyber crime, which is appreciable. The demarcation lies in the involvement of the medium in cases of cyber crime.

MODE AND MANNER OF COMMITING CYBER CRIME:

1. HACKING:

This kind of offence is normally referred as hacking in the generic sense. However the framers of the information technology Act 2000 have no where used this term so to avoid any confusion we would not interchangeably use the word hacking for ‘unauthorized access’ as the latter has wide connotation.

2. THEFT OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN ELECTRONIC FORM:

This includes information stored in computer hard disks, removable storage media etc. Theft may be either by appropriating the data physically or by tampering them through the virtual medium.

3. EMAIL BOMBARDING:

This kind of activity refers to sending large numbers of mail to the victim, which may be an individual or a company or even mail servers there by ultimately resulting into crashing of the entire system.

4. DATA DIDDLING:

This kind of an attack involves altering raw data just before a computer processes it and then changing it back after the processing is completed.

5. SALAMI ATTACKS:

This kind of crime is normally prevalent in the financial institutions or for the purpose of committing financial crimes. An important feature of this type of offence is that the alteration is so small that it would normally go unnoticed.

6. DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK:

The computer of the victim is flooded with more requests than it can handle which cause it to crash. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is also a type of denial of service attack, in which the offenders are wide in number and widespread.

7. VIRUS OR WORM ATTACKS:

Viruses are programs that attach themselves to a computer or a file and then circulate themselves to other files and to other computers on a network. They usually affect the data on a computer, either by altering or deleting it. Worms, unlike viruses do not need the host to attach themselves to. They merely make functional copies of themselves and do this repeatedly till they eat up all the available space on a computer’s memory. E.g. love bug virus, which affected at least 5 % of the computers of the globe. The losses were accounted to be $ 10 million. The world’s most famous worm was the Internet worm let loose on the Internet by Robert Morris sometime in 1988. Almost brought development of Internet to a complete halt.

8. LOGIC BOMBS:

These are event dependent programs. This implies that these programs are created to do something only when a certain event (known as a trigger event) occurs. E.g. even some viruses may be termed logic bombs because they lie dormant all through the year and become active only on a particular date (like the Chernobyl virus).

9. TROJAN ATTACKS:

This term has its origin in the word ‘Trojan horse’. In software field this means an unauthorized programme, which passively gains control over another’s system by representing itself as an authorised programme. The most common form of installing a Trojan is through e-mail. E.g. a Trojan was installed in the computer of a lady film director in the U.S. while chatting. The cyber criminal through the web cam installed in the computer obtained her nude photographs. He further harassed this lady.

10. INTERNET TIME THEFT:

Normally in these kinds of thefts the Internet surfing hours of the victim are used up by another person. This is done by gaining access to the login ID and the password. E.g. Colonel Bajwa’s case- the Internet hours were used up by any other person. This was perhaps one of the first reported cases related to cyber crime in India. However this case made the police infamous as to their lack of understanding of the nature of cyber crime.

11. WEB JACKING:

This term is derived from the term hi jacking. In these kinds of offences the hacker gains access and control over the web site of another. He may even mutilate or change the information on the site. This may be done for fulfilling political objectives or for money. E.g. recently the site of MIT (Ministry of Information Technology) was hacked by the Pakistani hackers and some obscene matter was placed therein. Further the site of Bombay crime branch was also web jacked. Another case of web jacking is that of the ‘gold fish’ case. In this case the site was hacked and the information pertaining to gold fish was changed. Further a ransom of US $ 1 million was demanded as ransom. Thus web jacking is a process where by control over the site of another is made backed by some consideration for it.

CLASSIFICATION OF CYBER CRIMES:

The subject of cyber crime may be broadly classified under the following three groups. They are-

1. Against Individuals :

a. against person
b. their property of an individual

2. Against Organization :

a. Government
c. Firm, Company, Group of Individuals.

3. Against Society at large

Against Individuals: –

They can be:
i. Harassment via e-mails.
ii. Cyber-stalking.
iii. Dissemination of obscene material.
iv. Defamation.
v. Unauthorized control/access over computer system.
vi. Fraud and cheating

Against Individual Property: -

i. Computer vandalism.
ii. Transmitting virus.
iii. Netrespass
iv. Unauthorized control/access over computer system.
v. Intellectual Property crimes
vi. Internet time thefts

Against Organization: -

i. Unauthorized control/access over computer system
ii. Possession of unauthorized information.
iii. Cyber terrorism against the government organization.
iv. Distribution of pirated software etc.

Against Society at large: -

i. Pornography (basically child pornography).
ii. Polluting the youth through indecent exposure.
iii. Trafficking
iv. Financial crimes
v. Sale of illegal articles
vi. Online gambling
vii. Forgery

Some of the above mentioned offences may discussed in brief as follows:

1. Harassment via e-mails-

Harassment through e-mails is not a new concept. It is very similar to harassing through letters.

2. Cyber-stalking-

The Oxford dictionary defines stalking as “pursuing stealthily”. Cyber stalking involves following a person’s movements across the Internet by posting messages (sometimes threatening) on the bulletin boards frequented by the victim, entering the chat-rooms frequented by the victim, constantly bombarding the victim with emails etc.

3. Dissemination of obscene material-

Pornography on the net may take various forms. It may include the hosting of web site containing these prohibited materials. Use of computers for producing these obscene materials. Downloading through the Internet, obscene materials. These obscene matters may cause harm to the mind of the adolescent and tend to deprave or corrupt their mind. Two known cases of pornography are the Delhi Bal Bharati case and the Bombay case wherein two Swiss couple used to force the slum children for obscene photographs. The Mumbai police later arrested them.

4. Defamation

It is an act of imputing any person with intent to lower the person in the estimation of the right-thinking members of society generally or to cause him to be shunned or avoided or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule. Cyber defamation is not different from conventional defamation except the involvement of a virtual medium. E.g. the mail account of Rohit was hacked and some mails were sent from his account to some of his batch mates regarding his affair with a girl with intent to defame him.

5. Unauthorized control/access over computer system-

This activity is commonly referred to as hacking. The Indian law has however given a different connotation to the term hacking, so we will not use the term “unauthorized access” interchangeably with the term “hacking” to prevent confusion as the term used in the Act of 2000 is much wider than hacking.

6. Computer vandalism-

Vandalism means deliberately destroying or damaging property of another. Thus computer vandalism may include within its purview any kind of physical harm done to the computer of any person. These acts may take the form of the theft of a computer, some part of a computer or a peripheral attached to the computer or by physically damaging a computer or its peripherals.

8. Intellectual Property crimes / Distribution of pirated software-

Intellectual property consists of a bundle of rights. Any unlawful act by which the owner is deprived completely or partially of his rights is an offence. The common form of IPR violation may be said to be software piracy, copyright infringement, trademark and service mark violation, theft of computer source code, etc.

9. Cyber terrorism against the government organization

At this juncture a necessity may be felt that what is the need to distinguish between cyber terrorism and cyber crime. Both are criminal acts. However there is a compelling need to distinguish between both these crimes. A cyber crime is generally a domestic issue, which may have international consequences, however cyber terrorism is a global concern, which has domestic as well as international consequences.

The common form of these terrorist attacks on the Internet is by distributed denial of service attacks, hate websites and hate emails, attacks on sensitive computer networks, etc. Cyber terrorism may be defined to be “ the premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, in cyber space, with the intention to further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives”

Another definition may be attempted to cover within its ambit every act of cyber terrorism.

A terrorist means a person who indulges in wanton killing of persons or in violence or in disruption of services or means of communications essential to the community or in damaging property with the view to –

(1) putting the public or any section of the public in fear; or

(2) affecting adversely the harmony between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities; or

(3) coercing or overawing the government established by law; or

(4) endangering the sovereignty and integrity of the nation

and a cyber terrorist is the person who uses the computer system as a means or ends to achieve the above objectives. Every act done in pursuance thereof is an act of cyber terrorism.

10. Trafficking

Trafficking may assume different forms. It may be trafficking in drugs, human beings, arms weapons etc. These forms of trafficking are going unchecked because they are carried on under pseudonyms. A racket was busted in Chennai where drugs were being sold under the pseudonym of honey.

11. Fraud & Cheating

Online fraud and cheating is one of the most lucrative businesses that are growing today in the cyber space. It may assume different forms. Some of the cases of online fraud and cheating that have come to light are those pertaining to credit card crimes, contractual crimes, offering jobs, etc.

STATUTORY PROVISIONS:

The Indian parliament considered it necessary to give effect to the resolution by which the General Assembly adopted Model Law on Electronic Commerce adopted by the United Nations Commission on Trade Law. As a consequence of which the Information Technology Act 2000 was passed and enforced on 17th May 2000.the preamble of this Act states its objective to legalise e-commerce and further amend the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Indian Evidence Act 1872, the Banker’s Book Evidence Act1891 and the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934. The basic purpose to incorporate the changes in these Acts is to make them compatible with the Act of 2000. So that they may regulate and control the affairs of the cyber world in an effective manner.

CONCLUSION:

Capacity of human mind is unfathomable. It is not possible to eliminate cyber crime from the cyber space. It is quite possible to check them. History is the witness that no legislation has succeeded in totally eliminating crime from the globe. The only possible step is to make people aware of their rights and duties (to report crime as a collective duty towards the society) and further making the application of the laws more stringent to check crime. Undoubtedly the Act is a historical step in the cyber world. Further I all together do not deny that there is a need to bring changes in the Information Technology Act to make it more effective to combat cyber crime. I would conclude with a word of caution for the pro-legislation school that it should be kept in mind that the provisions of the cyber law are not made so stringent that it may retard the growth of the industry and prove to be counter-productive.

Sidhartha Roy

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/cyber-law-articles/cyber-crimes-539363.html

Consider the case of Megan Meieras as reported by Fox News:

Megan thought she had made a new friend online when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her. Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel.

The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan’s.

Are there other stories equally as tragic going on this very second that never get reported on the news? Of course there are.

The phenomena of Myspace stalking is something relatively new. Myspace has only been around since 2003 yet its already a household name. Myspace stalking has been around since the creation of Myspace but today there are several software programs designed specifically to aid in Myspace stalking. In fact there’s even a cottage industry of tee shirts and bumper stickers that proudly declare “I’m a Myspace Stalker”.

There are steps you can take to avoid becoming a victim of a Myspace stalker.

1. Do not use your real name when opening you Myspace account
2. Set up a special free anonymous email account specifically for your Myspace account
3. Do not reveal , your name , age, birthday, employment or school in your profile.
4. Carefully study any pics you post to be sure there is no identifiers like a licence plate, street sign or house number.

If you do feel you are becoming the recipient of unwanted attention or possibly the target of a cyber stalker set your profile to private and remove the stalker from your friends list.

Document everything, save to disc and print out a hard copy for your records.

Use caution when reporting the stalker to Myspace. If you do they will usually shut down the account making it more difficult for the stalker to be located and identified should you need to report them to police or initiate a civil lawsuit for defamation.

If you feel you need to protect yourself you can hire an investigator that specializes in Myspace stalking and cyber talking cases in general. These investigators have tools and techniques to locate and identify your stalker, perform complete background checks and give you an idea of the threat level of your stalker.

An investigator can even perform an Online Risk Assessment to see how vulnerable you are to cyber stalking and identity theft. They will take your information, and playing the role of a stalker attempt to obtain your personal information with the information that is available online.

If you are getting unwanted attention and you are concerned you may become a victim on an online stalker you should have an online risk assessment performed on yourself.

There are several online investigation services that offer these types of investigations but before hiring one do a little investigation on them first. Check them out on Google to see if they are recognized as an expert in the field of Internet investigations and email tracing.

About the Author:

ED Opperman is president of Opperman Investigations Inc.He is considered an Email Tracing Expert. His website http://www.emailrevealer.com/, offers Blog Or Social Network Identification Investigations, Email Tracing and Online Risk Assessments.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/myspace-stalking-how-to-cope-614715.html

There are exceptions, however. There are a few types of statements that are, by their nature, presumed to damage a person’s reputation. This is called “slander per se”. These classes of statements are considered so harmful to a person’s reputation, that monetary damages are presumed. In such cases, the victim of the slander does not need to prove specific damages, just that the statements were made. There are 4 types of statements that constitute slander per se:

1. A statement that a person has committed a major crime
2. Statements that a person has a “loathsome disease”. This could include any disease which is serious and highly contagious. Modernly, it would probably also include sexually transmitted diseases.
3. A statement that a person is incompetent at their business or profession. This might include a statement that a soldier is cowardly, or that a lawyer is illiterate.
4. Statements of serious sexual misconduct. A public statement that someone engages in sexual behaviors that are generally considered perverse would fall into this category. It would probably vary between communities, based on their moral standards. A clear example that would apply in virtually any community is a statement that someone is a pedophile.

In a lawsuit for slander per se, all a plaintiff needs to prove is that the statements were made, and not that he or she suffered direct harm as a result. The statements themselves are considered to be the harm.

About the Author:

Ken LaMance is Corporate Counsel for LegalMatch.com – the easiest way to Find an Attorney Online. Ken is a well respected San Francisco Lawyer who has worn many hats at LegalMatch – from court litigator to project manager. He has been instrumental in creating LegalMatch’s Law Library, as well as expanding their online attorney search platform to hundreds of cities. LegalMatch is the nations leading online matching service for clients looking for representation in everything from Child Support to Personal Injury.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/slander-per-se-782976.html

If your site allows visitors to post digital files or comments (e.g. in an online blog, as well as in a forum or chat room), you could be held liable for copyright infringement if any of their postings infringe the rights of another person, even if you are unaware of the infringement. Under general copyright principles, you would be strictly liable for their copyright infringement, even if you are “innocent”.

You could also be liable for defamatory statements posted by bloggers.

The Playboy Case And Copyright Infringement

A good example of an “innocent infringer’s” liability that occurred before the enactment of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the case of Playboy Enter., Inc. v. Frena, 839 F. Supp. 1552 (M.D. Fla. 1993). In this case, Playboy alleged that the defendants who operated a bulletin board service (BBS) were liable for copyright infringement. Subscribers to the defendants’ BBS had illegally taken copyrighted photos owned by Playboy and uploaded them onto the defendants’ BBS.

The court found the defendants liable for copyright infringement, despite the fact that the defendants did not upload the photos (the subscribers uploaded them), and the defendants were unaware of the presence of the infringing photos until the lawsuit was filed.

The court stated: “…intent or knowledge is not an element of infringement, and thus even an innocent infringer is liable for infringement …”.

The DMCA, enacted in 1998, provided a “safe harbor” so that this harsh result can be avoided, but service providers must take affirmative steps to qualify for it… or else you will suffer the same harsh fate as Frena.

To qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from strict copyright liability, you are required:

* to post a specific notice on your site (Terms of Use); and

* to file the DMCA Registration Form with the US Copyright Office.

Liability For Defamatory Statements

In addition to liability for the copyright infringement of bloggers, another pitfall to avoid if you permit visitors to post to your site is liability for their defamatory comments about another person, a competitor, or another product.

Defamation is an intentional false communication, made either orally or in writing, published to a third party, which injures another person or company’s good name or reputation.

While it is clear you will be liable for defamatory statements posted by you or your employees on your site, what about defamatory statements posted by bloggers? Will you be liable?

Statements which consist of pure opinion are not actionable… however, merely stating that a statement is pure opinion does not make it so. For example, a law school professor was awarded $3 million in damages arising out of defamatory statements published on a student’s site.

Online defamation may occur in the context of product reviews where strong statements are posted such as “do not buy this product because it will not perform as advertised”.

In addition, actionable defamation may occur where a site publishes untrue promotional statements about a person or company. For example, in one recent case, the Wall Street Journal was sued by the Harrods department store for publishing the statement that Harrods was the “Enron of Britain”.

Congress came to the rescue of “interactive computer services” in 1996 with subsection (c) of the Communications Decency Act which provides: “No provider or user of any interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 USCA Sec. 230(c)(referred to below as “Section 230″).

Section 230 was intended to overrule prior case law which routinely held that online providers were liable as publishers and speakers for third party content. Now, under Section 230, absent an affirmative showing by a plaintiff that an online service provider is the author of a defamatory message, email, or post, the provider should almost always avoid liability for defamation. In other words, if you or your employees are the authors of defamatory statements, you’ll still be liable, but if your website visitors are the authors of defamatory material, you won’t be liable.

A word of warning about another pitfall — be careful in assuming an obligation to monitor messages, email, or posts contributed by your site visitors or in exercising editorial control over them. If you assume an obligation to monitor, or if you maintain editorial control, and if you fail to screen out defamatory statements, you may be liable, despite the protections of Section 230.

For this reason, your Terms of Use should clearly state the extent to which you exercise editorial control, if at all, over messages, email, or posts of site visitors. And it’s always best to reserve the right to monitor postings, but not the obligation to monitor.

Conclusion In summary, if you have a blog, take the steps discussed above that are required to qualify for the DMCA “safe harbor” from copyright infringement. Ensure that that your employees do not post defamatory statements on your blog, and affirmatively disclaim any obligation to monitor posts by bloggers.

About the Author:

Chip Cooper is a leading intellectual property, software, and Internet attorney who advises software and ecommerce businesses nationwide. Chip’s easy and affordable online contract drafting service coordinates website contracts such as Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Subscription, Membership, and SaaS agreements. Visit Chip’s http://digicontracts.com site and download his FREE report, “12 Sure-Fire Ways Your Website Can Get You Sued”.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/blog-sites-beware-liability-lurks-in-bloggers-postings.html

This particular sin is one of the few that calls down upon the sinner a corporal punishment (punishment while alive) that can be quite devastating. These punishments take on many forms depending upon the severity of the defamation and the effect it has on the victim.

There are idle gossipers that love to bring others down because it makes up for their inadequacies, they think. Their corporal punishment might be as small as having hay fever. Whereas, a vindictive assassination of character is usually dealt with by much more severe consequences. You see, God protects you and me from the devils having their way with us. He allows temptation only to test us and as Jesus told the world pray that “He leads us not into temptation.”

When someone seeks vengeance upon another person through character assassination, for whatever reason, God can and often does remove His protection from the underworld’s attacking the assassinator which leaves this person open to anything from family breakdown, loss of job, to yes, even death. This is why it is never a good idea to talk down on someone, something our forefathers knew but we have lost. They saw the misfortune of people who practiced defamation of character through the ages and it was handed down by their fathers to never partake of such evil.

A little known truth is that “every word that comes forth from your mouth will be judged.” This quote from scripture has deep ramifications. For example, if Mary starts a rumor about Susan by telling Paul some “juicy gossip” that defames Susan’s character and Paul proceeds to pass this gossip on down the line, each person that takes part in this chain of sin will be judged for every person below them. That is, Mary is responsible for everyone’s sin in the chain, no matter how many people are involved and Paul is responsible for everyone except Mary. This is much like setting fire to a forest. It all started with one spark! My grandfather told me “the words you use will come back on you, so make them worth receiving.”

Yes, character assassination is a most despicable sin and whether it is slander or not does not change the consequences of the act.

About the Author:

Mark Sanford is a retired communications specialist living in Austin, Tx. He and his wife both believe in the benefits of good mind and body through spiritual and physical exercise. Mark writes for AlphaLane.com.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/christianity-articles/be-careful-what-you-say-about-others-718559.html

Defamation, in law, is a general and broad term to include all false statements directed to someone, who then bears damage because of such imputation. Defamation may be committed either through writing or oral representation. The former is known as libel while the latter is called as slander or oral defamation. A malicious imputation through action is covered under the wing of slander. This is known as slander by deed.

Both kinds of defamation have different elements. But generally, for defamation to exist, the following must concur. First, there should be malicious and false imputation. Second, such defamatory statement should have been published. Third, publisher’s negligence, if it involves something that concerns the public. And finally, there should have been damage to the person imputed. Note that publication here is not given its usual meaning. For purposes of defamation, publication means that the imputation has been told to or been heard or read by at least a third person.

In most states and jurisdiction, defamation is the malicious imputation and damage to one’s reputation. But there are jurisdictions that accept mental anguish for defamation, even if actual damage to reputation is absent.

Laws on defamation vary across jurisdictions. Many have enacted statutes to strengthen the law on defamation. Other states revised, modified and altered this common law-originated concept such that cause of actions, defenses and elements greatly differ in one place to another. There are even some that allow retraction or apology to thwart full-blown litigation for defamation.

One of the forefront defenses in cases of defamation is truth. If you can show that what has been imputed is true, you may be cleared of the charges. Another defense is the privilege communication. In most jurisdictions, there is such a thing as absolute privilege where everything that will be said or imputed will never be actionable in courts. Best example is the speeches of members of congress done during sessions. Qualified privilege, on the other hand, would become actionable only as a defense depending on the circumstances. This includes factual reports without any comment or remarks.

Opinion may also come as a defense. If the comment is made as a mere opinion, it may not be a cause of action for defamation. As to whether or not it is an opinion would depend on the circumstances. There are other jurisdiction that while the statement is a clear opinion, if it was made based on a false supposition or fact, it becomes actionable for defamation.

Comments on matters of public concern are also a defense for liable or slander as the case may be. If for example the imputation is done about a controversy involving a public official, then the statement is not actionable.

In one case, New York v. Sullivan, the US Supreme Court decided that if a public official would be moving to file charges of defamation, he or she must prove that the statement is done maliciously or with gross neglect of what is true.

Private communications may not also be actionable in most jurisdictions. This includes communication between husband and wife, a patient and a doctor, a client and his attorney and so on and so forth.

Most of the time, since cases of this kind usually involve people in the limelight, filing a defamation lawsuit is not always wise on the part of the person impugned. This is because the defamatory statement, even if untrue, would just become more publicized. This is an overview of defamation as it can apply to personal injury law casse.

Stefanie Schoonmaker
About the Author:

The Law Offices of Eric Kassor, located in Raleigh, North Carolina, have over 20 years experience in assisting clients with their injury claims by a personal injury attorney Raleigh from auto accident lawyer Raleigh.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/what-is-defamation-2345080.html

Suing for defamation usually involves civil litigation under the law of torts. The party who claims their reputation was damaged as a result of remarks spoken or published brings a claim against the party responsible for the publication.

Defamation claims are notoriously complex and costly. This is particularly so if you are claiming slander, as it is difficult to prove that the statements were made, and, additionally, you also need to be able to prove that you have suffered some damage or loss as a result of the slanderous statement.

There are a number of defences against a claim of defamation, including justification or truth. It is therefore important to remember, if suing for defamation, that one of the major focuses of litigation is to determine not merely whether defamatory remarks were made, but whether the defamatory remarks were made for justifiable reasons, or whether they indeed were true. Complexities arise over the extent to which the statement is based in fact or merely opinion, and the accuracy of its reporting, etc.

Defamation law in the UK exists to protect individuals from an unjustified attack on their reputation. While this law allows individuals to seek compensation and a means to safeguard their reputation, it must also strike a balance between its protective function and the laws on freedom of speech, expression and freedom of the press. In this way, defamation laws are the subject of national and international debate because of the way in which human rights arguments are tied into litigation.

If you are considering suing for defamation, or are facing a claim against you, it is essential that you receive advice from a specialist defamation lawyer. This is partly in light of the extensive costs that can be awarded against you should you fail to win the case. Due to the high costs involved, it is also important to consider from the outset whether the person you wish to sue is solvent, that is, whether they will have money to pay for any award of damages made to you.

About the Author:

Ben Letham works for Contact Law, the UK’s foremost legal brokerage company – finding the right lawyer for your needs.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/when-can-you-sue-someone-for-defamation-1727736.html

Defamation Law Part 2: Successful strategies to deal with online defamation

Although it is difficult to get a successful result in an online defamation issue, it can be done by carefully establishing who is making the comment, and where they are based.  Other important considerations are how damaging the comments are and whether threats might drive the defamer to make further comments. Litigation and threats of litigation are not always the best way forwards but they can be a useful tool. The Facebook case illustrates one such instance where litigation was used to stop defamation on a social networking site.

The Facebook case: A modern take on defamation

Many web users have a false belief that they can say anything they want on the internet and not be held responsible. The courts are finding otherwise. In the most recent English case, Applause Store Productions Ltd v Raphael [2008] EWHC 1781 (QB) (QBD), a man was held liable for comments made on Facebook. Although the limits of defamation law were hardly stretched in this case, it is interesting to see how the court responded.  

The case involved Mathew Firsht, the owner of Applause productions, a well known company which provides audiences for television shows. He did not have a Facebook account. In June 2007 a fake profile was placed up on Facebook in an account using Mr. Firsht’s name.  This featured extensive personal information about him including his sexual orientation, political views, religious beliefs and a picture – supposedly of Mr. Firsht – but which was actually a copy of the profile picture from his twin brother’s Facebook page. The profile also included a link to a Facebook Group called ‘Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?’ In this case there was no dispute about whether the material was defamatory but only over whom had put up the profile and the group.  

The defendant, a Mr. Raphael who had been a friend of Mr. Firsht and also knew him professionally, had his identity revealed after Firsht’s lawyers sent a takedown notice to Facebook and obtained a Norwich Pharmacal order against Facebook.  The order required Facebook to disclose not only the registration data but also details of the IP addresses and email addresses which created the profile.

The profile had in fact been created by someone at Mr. Raphael’s IP address. After the profile was created all relevant activity which occurred on the fake account continued to come from Mr. Raphael’s IP address. The same IP address was also used during this time to login into two other Facebook accounts: Mr. Raphael’s account and Mr. Raphael’s girlfriend’s account. The fake account had only been signed into from two different computers at the IP address which included Mr. Raphael’s computer and his girlfriend’s laptop which he admitted he often used. The facts about the IP address and login details were not refuted by Mr. Raphael.  

The case gets even stranger. Mr. Raphael’s defence was that he did not create the profile and that the evening the profile was created he and his girlfriend had met a group of strangers at a bar who then returned home with them and spent the night. He said that one of them must have created the profile from his computer. He did not give an explanation of how someone else had been logging into the account from his IP address on the subsequent times the account had been accessed which would have been after the fake profile creating stranger left his home.  He instead choose to defend himself by relying on alibi evidence that he had not been at home on the other occasions when the Facebook profile had been accessed so it had to have been someone else.

The judge did not believe his story at all (rightly so) and decided that Mr. Raphael had in fact been the one to put up the false profile as well as the defamatory group.  Although the profile was not visible for a considerable length of time, 16-17 days, the judge ruled that due to the popularity and nature of Facebook, which targeted the material towards people who knew Mr. Firsht, the materials were particularly damaging. The Judge also ruled that the allegations of dishonesty were serious enough to harm Mr. Firsht’s business so allocated the award with £15,000 to Mr. Firsht personally, £5,000 to his business and an extra £2,000 for breach of his privacy. In this case, Mr. Raphael learned to his chagrin that comments made online can be costly and that lawyers can often get around the anonymity problem with IP addresses identifying computers not users.

Liability of Internet Service Providers

The other point to bear in mind when discussing defamation on the internet is that in some jurisdictions, including England, Internet Service Providers can have liability for content on the sites they host. They can be liable even if they were merely passively hosting the site unless they take down the objectionable material when they receive notice of it. The famous case on this point in England is Godfrey v. Demon.  In that case, an unknown person purporting to be Godfrey put up a comment on Demon’s server. The statement was defamatory.  The real Mr. Godfrey asked to have it removed telling Demon that it was fraudulent.  When Demon failed to remove the post Godfrey sued for defamation and won. This case established the importance of  ISPs treating complaints seriously and investigating and taking down any content that can be considered defamatory.

Since this case, the E-commerce directive has come into effect which also has ramifications for when a host can be liable in defamation (or for other acts).  ISPs are in a difficult position. On the one hand if they remove any content posted by their customers they could be in breach of their customers’ contractual rights (unless their contracts expressly absolve them from liability in certain circumstances) On the other hand if they don’t remove the content they could become personally liable for it to third parties.

Under the E-commerce Directive  most ISPs will be viewed by the courts as a mere conduit and therefore not liable for the content, as long as they do not initiate the transmission, select the receiver of the transmission and do not select or modify the information in the transmission.  Nevertheless, ISPs will still have liability if they are notified of infringing material and then refuse to take it down, and there are those who believe their responsibilities should be broadened further.

The position in the USA

In the United States, ISPs are not liable for defamatory information but they are often joined as co-defendants in lawsuits with John Doe.?  There is a purely practical reason for doing this. ISPs are becoming increasingly wary of divulging information about their users since it could be an invasion of privacy.

By joining the ISPs as defendants, once the lawsuit is initiated lawyers can make discovery demands of the ISP to get all of the relevant data which could help them trace the unidentified user who posted the comment.  Once the user is identified the ISP is usually dropped from the lawsuit and the user remains the sole defendant.

These laws not only have ramifications for ISPs but for any company which has a forum or allows user generated content on their website. Many companies are not aware that they themselves can be found liable for defamation due to actions of employees or other third parties on these websites.  In-house lawyers are becoming increasingly aware of the laws on defamation and privacy in order to take adequate steps to protect their employers.

What to do

If you find that you are the subject of a defamatory comment online there are a number of things that can be done.  Clearly balance the seriousness of the comment with the costs associated with getting it taken down.  The last resort option would involve going to court to get disclosure orders. Unless the comments are particularly grievous or widespread other avenues should be explored first.

If you are dealing with a hate site that uses a domain name similar to your company name there may be the possibility of trying to retrieve the domain name through a UDRP or other dispute resolution policy. However, this can be risky since at the moment it has not been decided whether these types of sites constitute fair use under the rules.  The other problem with this method is that you may inflame the situation further.  Also your efforts could be wasted if the site simply reappears on another non-infringing domain name.

Another option is to address the comment in the press or on your own website. Recently, in Israel, an anonymous internet user began a hate campaign against Israel’s best known maker of dairy products.  Defamatory comments were posted on a variety of websites and also sent around through emails. The company responded to the situation by posting comments on the website and also sending out their own emails via employees which defended their business.  This approach has been successful as content is no longer being posted and the record has been set straight for anyone doing future web searches.

It should always be kept in mind that attacks are often short lived. Surprisingly the best option sometimes can be to deal with the situation by ignoring it, and possibly using SEO strategies to keep the site or the comment low down in the search results.  The comment or website will often disappear since it takes a lot of energy to keep the site sufficiently prominent.

Defamation Law – Part I

The internet has radically changed the nature of defamation law.  While it was once a specialised subject left to media lawyers it is now a topic on which most internet lawyers have to advise.  Internet defamation is, however, dramatically different from more traditional defamation cases. 

Comments made on the internet can be instantly and indefinitely accessible to millions of people around the world. Even if the original site where the comment was posted has disappeared the comments may remain cached in a search engine or have been repeated on other websites or blogs.  On the other hand comments made in a newspaper or magazine have a more limited readership and more likely to be forgotten in a few days. 
As there is so much content on the internet much of which has questionable veracity, there is the question whether readers of the defamatory post actually believe it.  Whereas if defamatory comments are carried in print newspapers they are far more significant as print media is regulated and publication requirements are more rigorous. So all these differences between online and offline defamation makes it difficult to calculate the actual damage caused by on online comments.

Change in the role of publisher

One main difference between internet defamation cases and more traditional forms is that the identity of the “publisher” has changed. In the past it was often members of the press or large publications. On the internet the publisher could be virtually anybody anywhere around the world. Publication can occur in a variety of places as well on blogs, websites, emails, social networking sites and message boards. Courts have found that posting in all of these places meets the requirement of broadcasting of a defamatory comment.

Defamation on the internet has become a huge problem for both companies and individuals alike. One new problem that several companies have had to face includes internet hate campaigns.  Affected companies have found it extremely difficult and expensive to stop these.  Another difficulty on the web is that it can be difficult to determine who is behind a particular website or forum or blog comment on the internet.

The other issue is that the individual making the defamatory comment may have no assets and therefore not be worth suing. And if the defamer is located in another country the plaintiff would have the very expensive task of litigating in a foreign country which may have very different laws regarding defamation and the internet.

Non contentious approaches

Increasingly defamation on the web calls for non contentious legal skills, such as an understanding of the internet and what is or is not possible in terms of removing objectionable posts.  The Usmanov matter is a salutary lesson as to what NOT to do on the web.

Alsher Usmanov is the well-known Ukrainian billionaire owner of the Arsenal Football Club. The ex-ambassador from the United Kingdom to the Ukraine, Craig Murray, had written a book as well as a blog on the alleged criminal activities of Usmanov in his rise to power. Usmanov hired the well know libel firm Shillings to try to stop Murray. Since 2007 repeated attempts have been made by the firm to get Mr. Murray’s blog taken down permanently.

A particularly noteworthy attempt came in September 2007 after one blog post in particular was picked up by several Arsenal and political websites. Shillings sent cease and desist letters to Murray and the host of his website, Fasthost. Fasthost contacted the site administrator of Murray’s blog who refused to take the site down. Due to this refusal Fasthost pulled the plug on all of the administrator’s sites which included the website of Boris Johnson and the website of the London Bach Society even though neither website had any content on this matter.

The problem with this approach is it failed to get Murray’s site down for good and actually made things worse since their actions ensured the matter received even more press attention than the original post. So, defamation and protecting reputations online goes much further than engaging in defamation, privacy or copyright proceedings on behalf of famous brands and personalities.  As has been indicated in this article, the approach rarely involves litigious means, although it is useful to have an understanding of when a cease and desist letter will work and when it won’t.  Despite the difficulties with online defamation there are still some success stories out there which we will discuss in part 2.

Kathryn Carrado of Southern California.

Complaint boards, blog postings, community connecting sites, and individual web sites can be used to post a variety of useful information; but unfortunately they can also be abused to post false or even libelous statements about individuals and businesses.

With search engine technology that is now state of the art at such sites as Google and Yahoo! Search, your post can be spread around the globe with a reach and frequency that can do irreparable damage.

Often, a valid complaint against a small business can be turned into a war of words and accusations which is waged online by the business owner against the disgruntled customer, in order to try and make that customer look bad. This obvious and desperate attempt on the part of the business owner, meant to cover up the original complaint, only serves to turn a very negative light onto the business as well as the person managing it.

If you are a business owner, it is never a good idea to use a counter-attach strategy toward a patron who has filed a complaint against you. It makes you look bad, and worse, it makes you look guilty.

Larger Corporations can afford to utilize professional Reputation Managers who use search engine optimization techniques, press releases, and other methods to keep their clients looking favorable. If you don’t have the luxury of being able to afford a Rep Manager, you can still gain the same results by mimicking what they do.

It’s inevitable that something negative will be printed online about almost every company at some point in time, and the best practice is to issue a simple statement of fact from your perspective, list the ways in which you attempted to assuage the situation, and end it all with a two or three nicely-written endorsements from your other customers. The best endorsements should contain the contact information for the customer, so that potential clients can follow up to make sure that they are real.

Don’t invent endorsements by the way; this very likely will come back to bite you, and paint you in an even more unfavorable light.

In addition to your response to the complaint, it’s a good idea to create a page on your business site which focuses on the positive aspects of you personally; as well as the features, benefits, and services you provide. One whole page or more should be devoted to customer testimonials. You can’t have too many click-able endorsement links. If a potential client gets tired of reading them, he or she can just stop clicking and go back to your home page; or better yet to your “contact us” page or online order form.

Posting pages of negative personal information about a customer who has complained online about your business only makes you look bad to future clients. Not only is it a highly inappropriate response; many times it is illegal.

Victims of slander, libel, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement are starting to fight back against business owners; and they are winning. Just because you have a business website, it doesn’t mean that you can post whatever you want to on it. The use of a disgruntled customer’s name and contact information without his or her permission is punishable by law; as is the use of his or her photographic likeness.

The main thing you should remember in responding to an online complaint is to keep everything positive. Focus on your strengths and the satisfaction of your past customers. This speaks volumes about who you are and what you do.

David Daniels Slander and Libel author Joseph Devine.

David Daniels

Online Reputation Management Services

US / Canada: 1-877-355-6410

Local: 321-945-7973

Click For Reputation Management Services

Email: reputationprofessor@gmail.com

Web 2.0 and Reputation Monitoring

What would you do if someone spray painted something defamatory on the side of your house? You might call the police or the council, but most likely you’d clean it off yourself. It’s an annoyance, but one that could be resolved relatively easily.

Now imagine the wall was visible by millions, including your friends, family, customers and potential employers. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t clean it off. In fact a lot of the efforts you made to erase it only drew more attention to it and helped make the wall more and more prominent.

Welcome to the Internet.

USMANOV CASE

Alsher Usmanov the Ukrainian billionaire and major shareholder of the Arsenal Football Club, hired Shillings to try to take down the blog belonging to Craig Murray (the ex-ambassador from the United Kingdom to the Ukraine).  Murray had written about Usmanov’s alleged criminal activities in his rise to power. In precipitating these actions Usmanov came up against the unwieldiness of the internet.

Far from managing to remove Murray’s blog posts, press interest was increased when Fasthost who were hosting Craig’s website pulled the plug on all the websites for which Craig’s site administrator was responsible in the face of the administrator’s refusal to take down Murray’s site.  It was unfortunate that the administrator’s sites included the website of Boris Johnson and the London Bach Society.   The incident also became a cause célèbre in the blogging world when many prominent bloggers began commenting on the case, and others posted Murray’s blog on US sites, out of the jurisdiction of the legal action.

Unless you actually own the site on which negative content appears, getting content removed on the web is difficult, if not impossible.  You may succeed in getting one site to take down content, only to see that content resurface elsewhere.

GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS

The fact that comments made on the internet can be instantly and indefinitely accessible to millions of people around the world makes this a serious concern. What in the offline world, might have passed as a grumble and hearsay over a pint in the pub becomes a different beast on the web.  Even if the original site where the comment was posted has disappeared the comments may remain cached in a search engine or appear on other websites or blogs.

When gossip website TMZ leaked audio of Christian Bale’s tirade against the Director of Photography on the new Terminator Film, the story quickly spread throughout the Internet. A Google search for ‘Christian Bale’ the following day revealed several stories about the star’s angry rant and a link to the original TMZ audio, all in the first ten search rankings.

While Google accounts for 50% of all Internet searches, many Google searches reportedly never go beyond the first ten links.  For businesses and individuals worldwide, this means their most visible reputation is dictated by ten blue links and a few lines of text.

HATE SITES

So what do you do if you are Company X of London and a disgruntled former customer in Beijing has started companyXsucks.blogspot.com?

You could try ignoring it, but your potential customers probably won’t when they Google “company X” and the Company X Sucks link ranks at number 2, right behind the official Company X website.

But at least you’re aware there’s a problem.

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

In some situations you might be able to take control and publish a response in the press or on your own website, and by sending out emails. This is what an Israeli company did recently when anonymous defamatory comments were posted about it on a variety of websites and also sent around through emails.

Such attacks are often short lived. Surprisingly the best option sometimes can be to simply ignore the incident and let it gradually disappear.  It takes a lot of energy to keep the site sufficiently prominent with new posts.  On the other hand, in some cases the negative site could feature among the first ten results even several years after the last post.

DEFAMATORY CONTENT

And what if you find out about the private Facebook group ‘Company X’s product is dangerous’ which has 500 members, and doesn’t show up on Google? Or there is a micro-blogger on Twitter using your CEO’s name and making fake claims? What can you do about the 4 page thread on a message-board talking about how 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 anonymity problem.  They sent a takedown notice to Facebook and obtained a Norwich Pharmacal order requiring Facebook to disclose not only the registration data but also details of the IP addresses and email addresses which created the profile.

Despite Mr. Raphael’s protestations that he had been impersonated and had not created the defamatory profile, he was held liable for the defamatory comments on Facebook.  The Judge refused to believe his story.  To his chagrin the judge ruled that the allegations of dishonesty in the comments were serious enough to harm Mr Firsht’s business making him liable in damages.  So the award in Mr Firsht’s favour gave £15,000 for Mr Firsht personally, £5,000 to his business and an extra £2,000 for breach of his privacy.

WHY MONITOR REPUTATION?

Whether there is even any validity to any online smears is immaterial.  Once it’s on the internet it’s in the public sphere, where it stays.

Watching everything can be complicated, confusing and time-consuming. And that’s before you even attempt to respond to the negative or incorrect content.  As a result an increasing number of companies and individuals are using reputation monitoring services to keep track of their online reputation.

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

Reputation management tools should not be confused with the press cuttings services that inform the business about mentions of its name in the press.  Often these services include a licence to reuse such content within promotional material.  Reputation monitoring is quite different in nature and aims purely to scour the web, social networking sites, forums or message boards for any mentions of your name or other chosen keywords which are being monitored.

Defamation is also defined as:

• Calumny

• Vilification

• Slander-when the defamation is done through spoken words

• Libel-when the defamation comes in the form of published words

It is the communication of a false, malicious claim made against an individual, business, product, group, government or nation that results in the creation or acerbating of a negative image.

There is also the tort of false light. This is when the hurtful information that was distributed is not technically false, but is determined to be misleading. False light was put forth to dissuade the publication of information that is technically true but twisted to seem different from what it actually is in order to avoid suits of defamation.

Defamation, the term, is used internationally and purposefully does not distinguish between libel and slander. Although defamation is technically a tort and is most commonly used in civil cases, in some nations defamation can actually be a criminal offense.

Common Instances of Defamation

It is almost impossible to enter a grocery store without being overwhelmed by countless magazines with hundreds of stories about celebrities. These stories are often very derogatory and it can be argued that they are severely hurting the status of a certain celebrity. It is confusing in many ways that celebrity tabloids exist within a world that allows lawsuits for defamation. But these publications feel that the risk of defamation lawsuits are worth publishing stories that are absurd enough to sell.

Many, many celebrities do, in fact, sue these magazines or television programs. It is so common, it is not often talked about. The energy that taking out a lawsuit against a magazine takes is often times not worth it to the celebrity when it comes to fighting a lie that is published against them.

Other groups that can be severely hurt by defamation are large companies. For them, a serious allegation against their character can turn the public against them and hurt them financially.

For more information on defamation, visit the website of the personal injury attorneys of LaMarca & Landry PC

Joseph Devine

In the United States freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and by many state constitutions and state and federal laws.

It is not surprising that in the United States the burden of proof for defamation is on the Claimant to prove that what was written or said was false. In the United Kingdom the burden of proof is on the Defendant to prove that what was said or written about the Claimant was true. The contrast in where the burden of proof lies between the two countries is just one of the ways in which you can see how different countries balance out freedom of speech and defamation. This difference has led to wealthy individuals forum shopping in different jurisdictions for the most Claimant friendly jurisdiction to bring an action for defamation a phenomenon called “libel tourism”.

The Internet has blown the realm of defamation wide open with instant access, this fact, coupled with broad principles of UK jurisdiction has helped London become the most popular tourist destination for online defamation claims. Ever since the old case of Duke of Brunswick v. Harmer in 1849 which established the multiple publication rule, UK courts have repeatedly held that even where the defendant’s publication is distributed mainly in another jurisdiction, as long as it is downloaded by a number of readers in the UK then that is enough to constitute a separate actionable publication in the UK.
It is also worth noting that even if the publication has been on the Internet for over a year. The publication starts running again from the next time it is downloaded.

In the UK there have been cases of articles only published in languages other than English that have been actionable.
However a word of caution, even if a Claimant is successful in bringing a claim in the UK for defamation relating predominantly in another jurisdiction, it is not clear whether such UK judgments would be enforceable in any other country, so it is worth checking that the defendants have sufficient assets in the UK to enforce judgment before bringing a claim.

This article was written by Peter Adediran his website is at http://www.peteradediran.com/legal/

When Bing Crosby sang ‘You’ve got to accentuate the positive/and eliminate the negative‘ back in 1944, he probably wasn’t thinking about the Internet and promoting business reputation.

Take Google. It accounts for 50% of all Internet searches.  Many Google searchers reportedly never look beyond the first ten links.  For businesses and individuals worldwide, this means their most visible reputation is dictated by ten blue links and a few lines of text.  So, it is worth monitoring your online reputation.

Reputation Monitoring

Reputation monitoring involves keeping track of what is being said about you online and is necessary and useful for the reasons outlined here.

Finding out what’s being said about yourself or your company online needs to incorporate blogs, micro blogs, social networking, video sharing websites, news feeds, forums, message boards and whatever other new buzz tool web 2.0 throws up this week.

There are a variety of free tools online that will allow you to search through these sites or monitor in real time, but watching everything can be complicated, confusing and time-consuming. And that’s before you even attempt to respond to the content.  This is why there is a growing need for services which can help you track your online profile and reputation by providing a consolidated view of comments from all sources, and then filtering and categorizing these to make it easier to see the wood for the trees.

A free tool to help you gauge your online reputation is Google Alerts. However, it is hardly the entire picture. Google (and Yahoo) only alert you to content once they index it for search.  This will be quick for major sites such as the BBC and CNN, but for many others it will be once a day, once a week or even less frequently.  Nor does Google aim to be comprehensive.  For example, they tend to ignore comments on lower ranked sites.

So Google Alerts is thought to cover only 30 % of all the online content.  In particular Blogs, Forums and Social Media sites are not comprehensively covered.  For example, Technorati and Board Reports are better for Blogs and Forums.

Generally the answer is to have an aggregator to bring these sources together and collate and categorize the results.  BuzzMonitor and LeafRSs are examples of such tools.

As for paid services, there are a confusing number.  A significant advantage they offer over free tools is in offering custom filters to fine tune the results, and reduce the number of irrelevant ones.  However, many of them are targeted at tracking marketing or advertising campaigns to assess ‘buzz’ value. 

Negative Content

If your business is ‘Travel XYZ’, and your potential customers are searching for information about you, their first impression is most likely influenced not by your official website, but by the information that comes up when they conduct a Google search.

The first or second link might be to the official ‘TravelXYZ.com’ site.  But what if among the other search results  in the top ten, there is one featuring links to a disgruntled review of one of your holiday packages, a forum thread about how ‘Travel XYZ stole my money’, or even a dedicated complaints blog called TravelXYXsucks.com!

It is immaterial whether the comments on the negative sites are correct or not.  The problem is that just like in the offline world, first impressions count. No matter how good your official website, those negative sites are going to sit in the mind of your potential customers, and contacts, and at the very best raise doubts. At worst, it could see the potential customer pass over your business and seek out a company with a more favourable online presence.

So what can you do? Your first instinct is probably to do everything you can to get the negative content removed. After all, if someone spray-painted something about your business on the side of your shopfront, you’d do everything in your power to have it removed as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately when it comes to online content, having items removed is not always straightforward.   On many occasions efforts to force people to remove online comment has backfired, only creating more attention on the negative content, attracting visitors and shooting it up the Google rankings…maybe even ahead of the businesses’ official site!

Rather than move in a heavy handed fashion to have negative content removed, a more ‘softly softly ‘ approach may achieve a better outcome.  For example, you could try putting across your side in a constructive and positive way (sometimes you may want to engage the services of a PR expert to help you).  Another tactic sometimes might involve engaging the services of a Search engine optimisation expert (SEO) who specialises in this type of work to manipulate the search results striving to eliminate the negative, by starting to accentuate the positive.

What does this mean?  It includes establishing a positive identity for your business online.  This has two effects. One, by becoming more prominent online you stand a better chance of ‘owning’ your search rankings (so as to lessen the chance that isolated incidents will rise to prominence on Google).  And two, you begin to engage your customers in a positive and transparent way, and maybe even head off potential negative comments before they are even made.

Websites

The first and most obvious way to establish your profile online is with your own website. A website allows you to strengthen your connection with your existing customers, and also act as a first impression for potential new customers.

A simple good informative site with lots of interesting and helpful information describing how you can meet people’s needs will reflect favourably on your brand and can help create an image of professionalism. Chances are most businesses already have a website, but there is often scope for enhancing its presence and ranking by providing useful content, such as regularly updated information on your business and advice on new developments in your industry. 

What else can you do?

Internet forums

A good forum is a public meeting space where like-minded people can come together to discuss their interests in a friendly and supportive environment. 

However, watch the online forum environment for a while before you leap in.  Careful consideration should always be given in advance to the way in which you will engage with your customers in a forum.  Some companies have tried creating ‘dummy profiles’ and logging onto forums to promote their products direct to users under the guise of being a member of the public.

This kind of marketing is almost always a failure, and serves only to alienate potential customers. People (especially internet users!) are cynical, and a new user with a handful of posts who only seems to promote your product will probably be seen through, and most likely be banned from the forum.

What’s more within the EU this type of  ‘buzz marketing’ exposes you to a possible fine of up to £5000, and two years imprisonment following the Consumer Protection  from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 which came into force last year.  In practice, even if no prosecution is brought, a practice deemed illegal by the Advertising Standards Authority could lead to other undesirable consequences.  For example, insurers may disclaim liability, suppliers may argue they have a right to walk away from particular contracts, other bodies such as the Consumers’ Association could become involved. 

So, in view of the potential ramifications, and the practices known to lead to online success,   if you want to engage forum users, the key is transparency.  Make a profile in your own or your company’s name, include links to your official website, and make an effort to contribute useful information to the forum so as to become a valuable member.  By establishing yourself as a trustworthy authority on a topic, you can grow the profile of your business and your potential customer base. 

Blogs

While traditionally journals have been introspective, blogs which are effectively an online journal  are open for viewing by millions of readers worldwide, with some of the most popular blogs attracting thousands of daily readers.

While blogs are normally associated with individuals and personal interests, corporate blogging is become increasingly popular. A 2006 study by Jupiter Research estimated 34% of large companies had weblogs, with many more companies planning on starting their own web logs.

A corporate blog which is open to the public can be a great way to engage with your customers and give them an insight into the day to day operations of your business. It’s also flexible, and allows you to comment on news, announcements, or even potential bad news about your company in a friendly, easily accessible and less formal way than a traditional press release.

Microsites

A microsite is a website which is separate to your main business website and has its own domain. For example, VandelayClothing.com might be your primary website, which advertises a range of clothing available for order. However, perhaps you want to give prominence to a Christmas sale, without distracting from your core site and changing its content.  In that situation you may look at creating the microsite VandelayChristmas.com, which focuses on the specific Christmas sale. The added benefit of such a microsite is you can conduct contextual advertising.

Contextual advertising involves banner advertising on other websites depending on keyword. For example, using contextual advertising you could target Internet users who are searching for Christmas information with targeted advertising about your specific Christmas website.

Social networks

So, in general terms, a social networking site is an Internet website that allows you to connect and interact with people with similar interests. There are literally hundreds of social networking sites, with the most popular including Facebook, Linked In and Twitter. They vary, but at their heart all these sites allow you to create profiles and proffer your thoughts, opinions and musings with a worldwide audience.

But what if you do a Google search of your business and nothing comes up? Is there still a need to ‘accentuate the positive’, by establishing an online presence and actively promoting your business? If anything it’s more important than ever.

As Oscar Wilde said, ‘the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about‘.

The use of social media websites for marketing is growing fast. However, this is new ground for many marketers and, as it matures, certain legal issues will emerge. In this article, I look at a few potential legal pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Because social network marketing involves the publishing or broadcast of online content, many existing, traditional media law apply to content on social media websites.

Copyright is the big one, with “fair use” on the forefront. Copyright law protects any type of content whether it is text, audio, video — whether or not an actual copyright statement exists on the content. To keep yourself safe, always quote sources. Even if you don’t use a statement word-for-worth, it’s better to attribute statements to known sources.

Services such as CopyScape offer website owners and web content providers the ability to check their writing against other content on the web. But, it won’t check older, or archived, content that doesn’t exist on the web. Just because content has been checked with CopyScape doesn’t mean it wasn’t plagiarized.

These same standards apply to trademarks, logos, literature and art. Your motto should be “When in doubt, source it out.” Be aware also of “deep linking” to content, whether pictures, logos, or other material.

If you link to content which looks like it might be misconstrued as belonging to you, you could be in violation of copyright laws. Not to mention stealing bandwidth.

Another potentially problematic area is disclosure and confidentiality. You need to be careful about what you write about your own business and competitors. Revealing information about the business transactions of your clients or competitors could land you in very hot water. When you perform a transaction with a client, it’s assumed that you will hold client information confidential. Leaking confidential information can be very damaging to a client or competitor—not to mention your own reputation.

Any media law expert will tell you that one of the biggest dangers when publishing or broadcasting are defamation and libel. If you are writing anything about an individual, especially if it is controversial, you must check that all facts are correct before publication. In fact, even if you are repeating something libelous that you saw written elsewhere you can have legal problems. The best advice? Don’t do it. Stay away from anything that hints of trouble.

If you use social media websites like FaceBook and MySpace, be aware of privacy issues. While it is perfectly ethical to use social networking websites to spread your message to people who are genuinely interested, many people game the system. Like email spam, social networking spam is becoming a huge problem. Don’t be surprised about future legislation on this issue.

Social network marketing is still in its infancy so many legal issues have yet to be flushed out. The bottom line is that if you’re communicating on social media sites, and you’re not attempting to circumvent ideas or privacy, you shouldn’t run into any legal trouble.

In general, unfair competition refers to the economic injury that a business may sustain by reason of the deceptive business practices of others. This may consist in acts which confuse the public as to the origin of the product or in “unfair trade practices” which includes among others, false advertising, trade libel and false representation of products and services.

False advertising is clearly defined by the Lanham Act as “any advertising or promotion that misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities or geographic origin of goods, services or commercial activities.” There are three acts which constitute ‘false advertising’ namely, “a) failure to disclose, b) flawed and insignificant research and c) product disparagement.” There is false advertising when a representation that is made is not true because it results from the failure to disclose a material fact. Thus, the falsity consists in the statements that falsely gives account or are stated incorrectly and those statements which are only to some extent correct.

Flawed and insignificant research refers to claims made which are unsubstantiated by any authoritative research or “which are contradicted by a prevailing authority or research” (§ 43(a) of the Lanham Act) while product disparagement refers to an act of creating disbelief in the product of a competitor.

In order for a case for false advertising to prosper the plaintiff must prove that the challenged statement is virtually false or if not virtually false, the statement is likely to result in the deception or confusion of the customers. Moreover, the plaintiff must establish that the false statement or representation made by the defendant is essential and material. It is deemed to be material if it affects the decision of the consumers to purchase the product or avail of the services.

“Passing off” may also constitute unfair competition. Lanham Act prohibits “false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact” in commerce, which “is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person . . .”

With the advent of advanced technology and the development of new ways and means of marketing products and services, there are higher risks for unscrupulous use of the marketing strategies and devices. The internet for instance has been a fertile breeding ground for numerous term paper mills and custom essay writing websites that cater to students who need relief from the stress of researching and writing academic requirements and tasks.

These websites claim to be companies when they are not incorporated or registered at all or where one entity incorporates or registers and all other entities owned by it are made ‘affiliates’ without necessary documentation or registration as well. They claim to be located in the U.S. territory and/or UK as specified on their websites when after verification their offices in those places specified are non existent. These websites also claim that their papers are written by native speakers of the English language with PhD’s and Ma’s when a Google search would reveal that majority if not all of the complaining writers are non-native English speakers, i.e. from India, Pakistan and the Philippines. They use American domain-name registrars and American hosting companies. There are a few instances as shown by evidence that modifications of their websites were done with a foreign Internet Protocol (IP) address in Ukraine. These websites cause press releases to be issued to sway the mind of the public that they truly are located in the U.S. specified address by announcing seminars, symposium, and award giving events as having been conducted in several hotels when upon verification and inquiry, none of any of the events transpired.

For instance, SuperiorPapers dot com announced in September that it would launch its First Term Paper Symposium on 7-8 of November 2008 at the Sheraton Reston Hotel. An inquiry was made after said dates and the Complex Director of Revenue Management of the Sheraton Reston Hotel denied having had any symposium or event of SuperiorPapers (with documentary evidence consisting in correspondences).

Another Press Release article was released on 27 September 2008 announced that BestDissertation dot com will hold its 5th Annual Writing Convention on 26-28 September 2008 at the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel. The hotel officials, upon inquiry also denied having hosted the event at their Hotel(with documentary evidence consisting in correspondences).

The worst so far of the PR materials released is one which drags San Diego City College as supporting the use of term paper mills, specifically BestEssays dot com. The PR article dated 23 December 2008 claimed that San Diego City College partnered with BestEssays dot com in a one day seminar which allegedly concluded in the promotion of the essay writing website. It further alleged, “At the end of the seminar, San Diego College acknowledged the valuable partnership of www.bestessays.com by helping promote the site to the participants.” The President of San Diego City College (SDCC) upon being informed of this vehemently denied that the institution is supporting the use of term paper mills. He also said that no event as presented in the article took place in the City College (with documentary evidence consisting in correspondences). In fact, the website of SDCC contains a section for Press Releases and Events but there was no such event ever happening within the College as described in the press article written by ‘Lula Williams’ of BestEssays.

Sometime in the early part of December 2008, I noticed that on the website of SuperiorPapers dot com and specifically on the extreme lower right were logos under the heading ‘As Seen on’ of TimesOnline, PittsburgLive dot com, New York Times, Information Computer Sciences (www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk), GEOS7 and PlagiarismAdvice dot org as shown in Figure 1 (Please note that I ‘whited out’ the actual logos of these companies notwithstanding the fact that some of these companies had given their assent for me to post the image. I felt that displaying their logos even when authorized would be taking advantage of their stature and prestige). A site displays a thumbnail for 2008-10-09 but with a superimposed image of ‘TN PRO’ (software designated as Terrain Pro) at the bottom right corner to cover the logos. A part of two of the logos, “Times” and below it “Pittsburgh” are still evident. (The original copies of the webscreen shots taken on 03 December 2008 and 09 January 2008 are preserved for evidentiary purposes). The officers for these companies after having been informed of the use of their respective logos and after viewing for themselves the website of SuperiorPapers denied having anything to do with the website or any term paper mill for that matter. They demanded from SuperiorPapers to ‘take down’ their respective logos as its display and use on its website was NOT authorized and permitted.

The Service Director of PlagiarismAdvice Dot Org and representative of Northumbria Learning of UK, Mr. Will Murray had initially demanded the ‘take down’ of their logo sometime early this month and sometime on the 9th of January 2009 we noticed that SuperiorPapers took down only the logo of PlagiarismAdvice.org. Another logo used by Superior Papers without permission and authority was that of Information and Computer Sciences. According to Dr. Giuseppe Trombino MIET of Information and Computer Science Subject Centre, Higher Education Academy,“The Company is using our logo without our permission and we do not support their practice in any way.” On the 14th of January 2009, I noticed that SuperiorPapers took down all the other 5 remaining logos.

Mr. Peter Butterworth, an e-business consultant of the National 2B2 Centre explains that logos and branding are protected by Trademark Laws. The association of these logos without permission to one’s company is seen as done for the purpose of benefiting one’s stature and credibility of which the trademark-registered company has no knowledge or control. One can venture a logical assumption as to the reasons for the unauthorized use of the logos of reputable and established companies and institutions or of claiming to have inaugurated events in hotels and in an educational institution when there were none—these were all done so that they can portray to the consumers/public that they have physical presence in the United States of America and the inclusion of the logos of established companies in their website is sought to establish legitimacy, stability and endorsement by these established companies of the services offered by SuperiorPapers. The website’s “battle song” is to produce complete and “professional” research papers. I have some reservations about applying the word “professional” or “professionalism” after what I had witnessed from the foregoing.

These alleged websites are condemned and disparaged to be sham and scam sites not only on account of the above cited reasons but also of complaints of customers for plagiarized written papers and of their inferior quality and similarly, of complaints of numerous writers who were not paid the fees they already earned. Although majority of these websites vow unlimited revisions as requested by their customers or a refund of what has been paid, an equitable resolution is still not achieved.

Writers are accepted as mere agents of the websites and not as employees thereof. They are paid their fees either on bi-weekly or monthly arrangements. Orders or projects finished within the first fifteen days of the month are paid out within the first three days of the succeeding month and for work done within the sixteenth day until the end of the month will be paid out within three days from the fifteenth of the (same) succeeding month. It sounds like a neat arrangement but it is not. An issue or complaint regarding a completed order or project from the website or the customer (which is almost impossible to verify if it is real) will cause your entire earnings for that pay period to be pushed to the next pay period. When the issue is threshed out and resolved without finding fault on your part (which again is almost an improbability because the essay website will always find some reason to impose fines) your fees for the entire pay period as delayed and pushed back to the subsequent period will no longer be reinstated to its original pay period for the flimsy reason—a ran-down line of “We cannot do anything about that because it is our website system.” A cheap euphemism for “we still want to hold onto your money and not pay you.” I recall a writer who cried his heart out in a forum and related how the staff of one of these websites treated him. His evidence consisted of an email from the website saying, “We will not pay you! We are having a feast on your money!” The manner of payment of fees is done by PayPal, bank wire transfer or xoom.com and so on. Writers are not spared from being further mulcted of their fees because the websites still earn from this by imposing ‘transfer charges/fees’ every time they send out the fees of writers twice a month. These transfer fees are exorbitant for the simple reason that they still make money out of the writers’ earned fees. Contrary to what is specified on their websites where writers are promised to be paid as high as $16 per page, this is nothing but another deception because writers only earn $1 to $3 on low season and $5-$7 on a peak season and if it involves higher levels of specialized fields of science, computer technology and social science.

These websites are on a spree of hiring non-native English speakers because these writers are all too eager to take orders for writing due to a relatively high foreign exchange rate of the U.S. dollar in their respective countries. Another source of ‘profit’ for these websites is from the offense of writers known as plagiarism. This means that chunks of texts are copied from references without proper acknowledgement of its source. Plagiarism software identifies and detects all the copied material from the written work of a writer. Figure 2 is a web screen shot showing an actual plagiarism report of a writer of one of the websites. The texts are ‘whited out’ to prevent identification but the colored highlights of where texts are found are shown as those allegedly copied and plagiarized. Upon close scrutiny the bibliographical entries with a heading–’References” are highlighted in color and are identified as plagiarized. Any college student or for that matter, a high school student who is worth his lot knows that bibliographical entries and citations of references follow strict rules of form. Clearly, if we follow the ’software’ of this website then all bibliographical entries is most likely to show as copied. The writer who escapes fines imposed due to this is like finding a needle in a hay stack. To evade the imposition of the fine, the writer must go through qualitative analysis of the entire written work, i.e. line-by-line in order to justify each highlighted group of texts. Although the website takes pride in having a Quality Assurance Department, its function is alleged to be limited only to running the written work through the plagiarism software and thereafter forward it to the writer’s account so that an automatic penalty is imposed. This function is not regularly observed since only lengthy written works of over seven (7) pages are checked through the software during the peak season or when the writer quits working for them. The writer who quits would only receive whatever is left of his earnings after three (3) months.

There are written policies on fines as incorporated with the writer’s account in the website; this is not followed because the staff and management of these websites are the very ones who fail to observe them. Fines imposed are most often 2/3 of the total amount of compensation for the writer for that particular work. The Support staff would not even know how to justify such penalty when asked by the writer. Besides not being able to understand and speak English fluently (previously their Support staff are Ukrainians), the impositions of fines are often whimsical depending on the need or shall I say, greed level of those running it.

It is quite evident that these websites have various means of mulcting ‘profit’ using unorthodox strategies. They make money from the customers because of the papers written by their writers, they make money out of their writers from their alleged extortion in the form of fines and penalties, or their non payment of fees, as well as their business schemes in padding most of the writers’ transfer charges in case of wire transfer to the banks.

In a recently decided case, Axact (Pvt.) Ltd. v. Student Network Resources, Inc., Student Network Resources LLC, Ross Cohen and John Derit, 2008 WL 4754907 (D. N.J. Oct. 22, 2008), the Court aside from imposing pecuniary penalties for the violation of the Lanham Act, enjoined the complainant including internet search engines, web hosts and domain-name registrars “(i) from falsely advertising and misrepresenting the nature, characteristics, qualities or geographical origin of the complainant’s goods and services in violation of the Lanham Act or common law . . .” It should be recalled that the complainant therein owned and operated 544 term paper websites in Pakistan but most if not all of them specified a U.S. address. Albeit complainant claimed that it has front offices in the United States, it also however, admitted that its production facility is based in Pakistan. Judgment in default was entered against the complainant who chose to litigate in its own country. According to a Pakistan blog, complainant was also able to secure a site stoppage of one of the websites of the defendants –essayfraud.org–a known watchdog organization for essay scams was owned and operated by the defendant and where it was claimed that it was used as a medium through which the complainant was defamed. Both parties won in their respective countries with AXACT for $6 million and SNR for $694,750 but it is claimed that the lack of treaty between both countries barred the enforcement of the respective judgments.

For some people, essayfraud.org was organized to fight the competitors or the foreign sites. According to a blog, “Essay Fraud does not itself sell services to American students or have foreign competitors, but it appears to represent the interests of companies that do so.” Personally, I have some reservations about the defunct site of having maintained its independence after an admission that it was operated and managed also by a ‘competitor’ term paper mill. With a clear conflict of interest having been present and the lack of disclosure or transparency at the outset, an appearance of impropriety was created which may perhaps, have undermined any disinterested and objective person’s confidence in the website. 

There are forums that still exist which deal with the exposition of scams however the integrity of the same will depend on a number of factors, i.e. the purpose for which it was created, its policies or terms of use, the members/posters, implementation of the site’s policy and other related reasons.

From its initial launch on 10 February 2006, EssayScam.org similarly sought to expose the fraudulent practices of term paper websites as well as unethical business practices of companies. There were claims later on that this site and essayfraud are allegedly working together for the benefit of the ‘protected websites.’ Other claims were that posts conveniently disappeared if they were detrimental and prejudicial to the interests of the ‘protected sites.’ I personally witnessed a few disappearances and alterations myself more than a year ago when I chanced upon it. On 26 June 2007, a DMCA subpoena was issued for Essayscam in a case filed at the Illinois Northern District Court docketed as Case No. 1:2007cv03597. Soon after, the site decided to re-organize its forum. There were changes and one of which was a poster/member thereof who had been allegedly identified to be a staunch supporter/employee of one of those ‘protected websites’ is labeled now as ‘guest’ when all other members have a different format showing “reg., posts and profile” signifying date of registration, number of posts and profile (in hyperlink text). I was surprised to see several posts of this member when in fact there were hundreds before. I recall this member who was in the habit of getting into “verbal” warfare with some other members and she would easily post the IP addresses of the members she was against and in heavy discussion with on the forum. Be that as it may,in its recent Press Release of 12 December 2008 it claims that the forum is beneficial to both students and freelance writers. It seeks to identify the websites or companies that should be avoided and those legitimate sites which can help them. However, in its Disclaimer and Privacy Policy, it clearly states that it “does not guarantee the correctness or the truthfulness of the posts of the members. The readers and other posters are requested still to use judgment after conducting their own research.” Moreover in its press release, Essayscam.org guarantees that users will not be subjected to threatening language. Sad to say, one has only to read some of the 2007 posts where posters label others, ‘buffoon,’ I will kill you slowly,’ ‘dumbass,’ ‘FU.’ Some of which were unsolicited. There are a few professional ‘taunters’ and hecklers at the website who would follow you at every thread, heckle and badger you until your last ounce of patience. If one compares the older posts with the new ones, the newer ones are subdued. Perhaps, it is now under a new management or moderator. There are a few who even go to the far extent of identifying themselves as legal professionals but who would, sad to say display an apparent lack of basic legal know-how which leads one to believe that they are but impostors. Whether these members are posing to be such or are genuine legal professionals—the conduct expressed in the manner of written posts exhibit the seeming lack of nobility and the lack of conventional decorum befitting those in the legal profession. This matter had been raised and brought before the appropriate legal disciplinary bodies for proper investigation. Whether these people are real legal professionals or misrepresenting themselves, the probable result of disgracing the profession should be averted. I easily got the impression that some of the posters/members may be representatives of certain companies and with scripts. One group represents a few legitimately created websites or companies; the other group, those other foreign sites which are allegedly labeled to be fraudulent and of course, the minorities. There is a turf war out there. Some of each group’s members would deplorably try to expose each other’s shenanigans and unscrupulous practices hoping to get their hands on each other’s respective markets in the name of profit. Oh yes, of course for the benefit of the consumers. There are also very few that are motivated by a deep desire to help the victims and expose the fraud and unethical business practices but who in time, would just leave because of disillusionment. The professional ‘taunters’ will instigate, enflame and incite any person to lose his patience. No one can with certainty say that the members are genuine and true or that they have the truest and purest intentions to expose the alleged fraud because the website itself declares and advices the readers to still make their own research as the website does not guarantee the truthfulness of the information posted by the members albeit it believes that the information posted are gathered to the best of abilities of the posters. Moreover, it also contains a disclaimer that the information posted therein is not verified by independent sources. If truly there are consumer advocates at the forum, seeking to protect the consumers this is only limited to informational purposes. And even that, one still has to go beyond the true motivations of a person behind the forum handle and which can initially be seen from the manner by which the poster posted the information. Personally, I find the information ’slanted’ in one direction and the suggested action to be taken against the alleged scam essay writing websites are purely commercial or one that surely guarantees economic/financial injury to the business of a competitor. A slant in one direction is not all together bad but the lack of balance can at times be suspect. What I find amusing is the fact that one is made to feel that the entire turf of exposing the alleged fraud of the foreign essay writing websites, is the sole and exclusive domain of a few ‘ruling’ members who reign and lord it over. What I find even more amusing is the fact that once a writer identifies himself as writing for one of those alleged fraudulent websites and a non-native English speaker or an ESL, he is immediately heckled if he decides to pursue and take his chances with the website. He is ridiculed and stigmatized as one who is as “criminal” as the owners of the alleged fraudulent essay writing website by the self- declared consumer advocates. I was constrained to think that these members are but ones who have affiliated interest in the competitor essay writing websites. For how can one say that he is there to expose the alleged scams and help the consumers while at the same time and with the same force insult and humiliate another equally important vicitmized segment of the industry. Absit invidia!

The point that I need to underscore is the fact that the alleged existence of the scam and fraud of those which are claimed to be illegitimate essay writing websites do not detract from the fact that there are deceptive and unethical business practices committed by a few legitimately incorporated and created companies or essay writing websites because both can exist and co-exist. At times, I am led to believe that there may even be an unintentional ‘parasitic’ dependence between both as one “advertises” the other.

It is like a medical student and a doctor. The medical student advertises that he is a medical expert and falsifies certificates of training abroad while the doctor sets up a social work group for the victims of the medical student to discuss their grief and anger. Doctor sees that the victims are not enough to create an impact considering that he is already losing his patients over the medical student who only charges very minimal fees. The sympathizers of the doctor– his nurse, his secretary and his friends join the social work group to gather information and to encourage others not to patronize the services of the medical student. And perhaps use information they gather to their own advantage. Both doctor and medical student perform surgery on two different patients. The doctor leaves gauze inside the stomach of the patient. The medical student leaves a scalpel inside his patient’s stomach. Does the liability of the medical student lessen the liability of the doctor? It does not. But are they on equal footing? No they are not. Similarly, the legitimate U.S. companies and other legitimately organized and created foreign essay writing websites all conduct business on the same level playing field. A level playing field where IDEALLY they fairly compete with each other based on the legal rudiments of fair competition–where government regulation and oversight agencies exist to afford a venue as a means to vindicate and redress the trampled rights of their employees, the consumers, and their writers.

We cannot say that it is the same way for the alleged illegitimate websites especially when their physical location and identities are covered by layers of lies and deception. So going back to the analogy, one may ask why the doctor failed to report the fact that the medical student was illegally practicing medicine OR if there truly are victims of the medical students, why would the doctor not assist or guide them to seek redress. The answer is simple; I would leave that to you. Clearly, they are both on equal footing in terms of the insatiable desire for profit. 

Applying the legal pronouncements to the issues, if or when it is proven that the goods and services of these websites are not really written by PhD and MA native speakers of the English language as it has claimed and advertised it to be; if or when it is proven that the origin of these goods and services is not in the U.S. as it has claimed and specified on the websites; there is in my opinion evident misrepresentation constituting false advertising violative of the provisions of the Lanham Act. The press releases of these websites containing lies can therefore be considered as a means to further mold the mind of the consuming public towards such misrepresentation. The alleged unauthorizec use of the logos may perhaps be constituting infringement of the copyright and trademark of the registered owners. On the other hand and with the same strength, it must also investigate and penalize those legitimately created companies and entities which are found to have committed deceptive acts and trade libel. 

Unless the respective state governments and the federal government intervene and properly take cognizance of the sad state of the essay writing industry; it may continue to wreak havoc and injustice to the public. I personally know that most of these have been brought to the attention of the authorities. Who shall we expect to express their formal complaints? The students who availed of the services of these essay writing websites (regardless of whether they are legitimately incorporated or created) using these essays or term papers and passing it as their own in their schools and universities? Definitely not because expulsion is a severe penalty.. The writers whose amounts of earnings which were unlawfully withheld are not even enough to hire the services of counsel? Of course not. The pseudo consumer advocates? Of course not because they only have their own affiliation interests to protect. The government must step in.

The Federal Trade Commission is the body that is tasked to protect the consumers from “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” in the marketplace [15 U.S.C. 45(1)]. “The Commission discharges this function through its law enforcement powers of investigation and prosecution. The Commission also investigates possible deceptive practices which may harm or mislead the consumers because of false claims. Substantiation and proof is oftentimes demanded by the Commission and should there be a finding of violation, it is immediately referred to the Department of Justice for the imposition of stiff civil penalties.”

A friend of mine asked once before, what kind of government that spent billions of dollars of taxpayers money on education would support specifically an industry that promotes and encourages students to cheat by paying others to write their academic written requirements? Are we not defeating the very purpose of one of the roles of government? I personally feel that the first and foremost primordial consideration that any government should take is to protect the public from harm and injury whether it is bodily injury or economic injury. There is just so much of disinformation generated by an unhealthy kind of competition and feeding on the general public especially the younger populace and the established business enterprises. It is time for government to intervene and take decisive action for alleged violations of state laws and federal laws. Thereafter, everyone can hope that the lawmakers can enact laws either to discourage services that are believed to promote cheating and irresponsibility in the student populace or define and draw guidelines and restrictions for this industry. It is earnestly desired that the academic institutions as well as non-governmental organizations committed to learning and educating to make a collective and firm stand.The call of the Federal Trade Commission is clear. We need to educate ourselves about the future because rapid developments in technology present new consumer issues. Educating ourselves would be empowerment to assist us in avoiding the pitfalls of possible scams and deceptive practices. However, we should always be mindful that there exists disinformation and genuine information both used to the advantage of unscrupulous business establishments to mislead the public into patronizing their services over their competitors.

(Disclaimer: The tradenames of the respective companies and trademark are the property of the registered owners. The author does not claim ownership nor intends to profit out of its display in Figure 1 hereof. Please note that I ‘whited out’ the actual logos of these companies notwithstanding the fact that some of these companies had given their assent for me to post the image. I felt that displaying their logos even when authorized would be taking advantage of their stature and prestige. The original copies of the webscreen shots taken on 03 December 2008 and 09 January 2008 are preserved for evidentiary purposes. The author is motivated by the desire to recognize the right of the public to know the unexpurgated truth and what this industry wants to tell.)Please visit http://voirdireveritas.blogspot.com/ for more supporting and corroborative evidence.References:

1) “Unfair Competition” Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School.

2) Lanham Act of 1946 or 15 U.S.C.A. § 1051 et seq.

3) 15 U.S.C. 45(1)

4) Axact(Pvt.) Ltd.v. Student Network Resources, 2008 WL 4754907 (D. N.J. Oct. 22, 2008)

5) Pakistan Lawyers Blog. Accessed on 28 December 2008 from http://pklawyers.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/case-study-1/

6) Speech of former Commissioner Janet D. Steiger, FTC delivered at the Practicing Law Institute in New York on 17 September 1996.

7) All statements herein made by the author are supported by documentary and other evidence which were all previously submitted formally.

articlesbase.com/authors/voir-dire/145764.htm

Complaint boards, blog postings, community connecting sites, and individual web sites can be used to post a variety of useful information; but unfortunately they can also be abused to post false or even libelous statements about individuals and businesses.  

With search engine technology that is now state of the art at such sites as Google and Yahoo! Search, your post can be spread around the globe with a reach and frequency that can do irreparable damage.

Often, a valid complaint against a small business can be turned into a war of words and accusations which is waged online by the business owner against the disgruntled customer, in order to try and make that customer look bad.  This obvious and desperate attempt on the part of the business owner, meant to cover up the original complaint, only serves to turn a very negative light onto the business as well as the person managing it.  

If you are a business owner, it is never a good idea to use a counter-attack strategy toward an individual who has filed a complaint against you.  It makes you look bad, and worse, it makes you look guilty.

Larger Corporations can afford to utilize professional Reputation Managers who use search engine optimization techniques, press releases, and other methods to keep their clients looking favorable.  If you don’t have the luxury of being able to afford a Rep Manager, you can still gain the same results by mimicking what they do.  

It’s inevitable that something negative will be printed online about almost every company at some point in time, and the best practice is to issue a simple statement of fact from your perspective, list the ways in which you attempted to assuage the situation, and end it all with a two or three nicely-written endorsements from your other customers.

The best endorsements should contain the contact information for the customer, so that potential clients can follow up to make sure that the endorsements are real.  Don’t invent fake endorsements as this very likely will come back to bite you, and paint you in an even more unfavorable light.

In addition to your response to the complaint, it’s a good idea to create a page on your business site which focuses on the positive aspects of you personally; as well as the features, benefits, and services you provide.  One whole page or more should be devoted to customer testimonials.

You can’t have too many click-able endorsement links.  If a potential client gets tired of reading them, he or she can just stop clicking and go back to your home page; or better yet to your “contact us” page or online order form.

Posting pages of negative personal information about a customer who has complained online about your business only makes you look bad to future clients.  Not only is it a highly inappropriate response; many times it is illegal.

Victims of slander, libel, invasion of privacy, and copyright infringement are starting to fight back against business owners; and they are winning.  Just because you have a business website, it doesn’t mean that you can post whatever you want to on it.  The use of a disgruntled customer’s name and contact information without his or her permission is punishable by law; as is the use of his or her photographic likeness.

The main thing you should remember in responding to an online complaint is to keep everything positive.  Focus on your strengths and the satisfaction of your past customers.  This speaks volumes about who you are and what you do.

Freedom of speech is our guaranteed right as a United States citizen. Or is it? That is the question those opposed to censorship are asking citizens to decide and stand up for. However, the Federal Communications Commission claims it does not attempt to hinder a person’s right to freedom of speech. Their goal is to prevent obscenity and libel from being a part of the media, newspaper, television, and radio.

The FCC will issue fines to any entity that falls under free to air broadcasting who participates in programming that involves obscenities, vulgar behaviors, or libel. These finds are high dollar amounts ranging from $250,000 to $375,000 per incident.

One huge area of controversy involving censorship involves nudity, especially on the internet. The FCC states indecent nudity can’t be censored, but obscene nudity can be censored. Under the regulations of the FCC that have been approved by the Bush administration, those violating the nudity censorship laws can face criminal charges and prison sentences. The issue of censorship regarding nudity has gotten even tighter since 1996 when the Communications Decency Act was passed.

Other than the area of nudity, there are very few ways to censor internet materials. Many people enjoy that freedom while others are fighting to change that. It is one thing if you are searching the internet for a particular subject, then view it. However, many children have found nudity sites not suited for their viewing by simply typing in the name of a popular toy or music band into a search engine.

Keeping this in mind, it is important to remember that not everything you read on the internet is true. It may very well simply be someone’s opinion with no factual information to verify it. However, nothing mandates they state it is only their opinion on the internet. Therefore, it is often portrayed in a format that appears to be factual.

The issue of censorship remains very controversial. There are those who believe it is necessary to keep some guidelines and integrity in our society pertaining to television, music, and the media. However, the other side of the issue belongs with those who believe freedom of speech should be the prevailing decision.

As of September 2007, more than 106 million blogs have been tracked which makes one wonder just what blogging is.Blogging is that wonderful world where you can write your personal thoughts about what you think on any subject imaginable, whether good or bad, with or without anonymity, although in reality anonymity really doesn’t exist when it come to the Internet. Your website, your email has an ISP address which is easily traceable to any given computer.

In general, blogs are articles you write and post on the web for the entire world to see. Your blog puts you, your thoughts in the forefront, which lets others see your brilliance or idiocy. You can have your own website dedicated to your thoughts, or you can respond to a particular article that has been written which allows you to voice your opinion about the subject or article, although use tact when responding. Most news media allowing you respond to a written article requires you to provide a valid email address in order for you to make a comment.

Most subscribers to the Internet post there blogs on personal web pages or websites their ISP provides. Other bloggers post their comments on the multitude of websites available for posting their thoughts, usually indexed by subject. To find a blog site, simply type “blog/s” in any search engine and behold you will find thousands of blog sites you can read or post.

Methods for blogging vary which you should consider before doing any posting. Blogging in response to a particular article, as well as posting on dedicated blog sites are permanent blogs, in that they can not be changed once posted. With that in mind, you really need to think about what you want to say before posting your thoughts. It’s somewhat like making a comment, once spoken it can’t be undone.

The other side of posting on an open blog site is the libel issue. At present, blog sites are not libel for what you say, so use caution when blogging.

The other method of blogging is to have your own website or page where you write your own blog. Using this method, you can edit your blog, write about another subject or simply delete the blog entirely. This method in my opinion is perhaps the safest method of blogging, but there is a caveat to this method. When you write something on your computer using a word processor and save the document, even if you delete the article, or document, it still resides on your computer and unless you completely reformat or destroy the hard drive, it remains on you computer forever. If someone wants to prove you wrote the article, with the proper software they can retrieve it.

You may wonder if blogging is without peril. That depends. If you are blogging about your Aunt Tilly’s super fruit cake recipe, you’re safe, but if you’re blogging about a politician, an organization, the government, religious leaders, a company, an individual, you need to be careful about what you have to say, as you just might be libel. Presently, in the US, the courts are undecided about blogging, weighing in on the free speech side of the argument, however; individuals have been imprisoned and/or fined for their blogs.

To be safe when blogging, it’s important to use the correct adjectives, or follow the method the news media use when writing an article. Words like; alleged, subject to, suspected of, and the like may keep you out of trouble. Although, innuendos you make can been seen as an attack, an accusation, by some very sensitive people and they just might decide to take action against you.

Even when using safe words, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to suffer the consequences for your big mouth. Many states have what is known as; “The Right To Work Law,” which simply means employers can fire an employee for any reason, or for no reason. Individuals have been fired from their jobs for posting blogs about their company.

Many blogs are instructional in nature from how to grow a tree, wash a cat to building an explosive device. Here again you need to be careful. Those blogs about explosive devices just might cause a visit from a federal agency. Unfortunate as it is, when it comes to blogging, “Big Brother Is Watching!”

By: James L. Herman
Edited By: Bruce A. Tucker

In the back of the mind of any person or authority involved in publication of authoritative materials as well as information and views held to be “controversial” the specter of libel, accusations of “slander” and hence of lawsuits and similar legal actions are always in the back most corner of most authors, media staff and in 2009 / 2010 currently those writing for, maintaining and managing blogs- “Web Logs”.

True , in the US one can always maintain that the “First Amendment” of the United State’s Constitution says in part “Congress shall make no law… abiding the freedom of speech or the press”, and as well most American States constitutions carry similar provisions.

Yet it is not that simple in our modern times, by a means. The webmaster / blogmaster may reside in the US while the domain name is registered with a British domain registrar , the web hosting being run on server offshore , and staff doing setup and maintenance can be anywhere or anywhere in our “world is flat” Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times newspaper “The World is Flat” worldwide outsourcing mantra. Its a wide wide world , similar in a means to the jacket manufactured “made in America” where the only labor performed on that product in the US is the sewing of a Chinese made zipper in a garment that was indeed made in over a dozen overseas countries with “foreign” labor worldwide.

Thus when it comes to the definitions and applications of libel law, it’s a wide open field. Whose definitions do you use of libel and damage done? Whose rules do you play by in or in any courts of law? What redress and whose law of action? Just the simple logistics of getting the involved staff , never mind the legal authorities into one room , or even obtaining simple answers can be downright hard to obtain can be more than difficult if not impossible in practical logistic terms. Imagine trying to play telephone tag with bureaucrats and legal staff across the world and varying time zones.
It mind numbing.

Thus for any person or group involved in any manner in publishing on the internet – whether it be a simple webpage or a blog – either singly or attached to a web site libel laws are not laws of strict censorship. As a “practical ” matter , anyone and everyone can speak , write , publish on the web expound in their own blog , blogs or make comments on differing blogs , blogposts or assorted miscellaneous forums or perhaps foriu. That and all that they wish so to speak.

However it can be said that “nothing is for nothing”. One should always be aware and be cognizant of libel, if the exercise of their own actions and face the consequences of libel. If their actions of what they consider their personal rights infringe on the freedom of another person, particularly their reputation and personal integrity and honor. In the end when it comes to concerns of libel and slanders it never hurts to be careful and conservative when it comes to actions and deeds.

Answer:

Postings on message boards and similar places are normally regarded by the courts in the same light as hard copy publications.

This means that if the words are untrue and are likely to damage the reputation of the person or company referred to, then publication will amount to libel and the court may award an injunction to prevent further publication and damages in favour of the person or company libelled.

If publication is merely abusive and not likely to damage reputation, the court will not normally regard those publications as being defamatory and will not assist the person or company referred to.

The difficulty with online publications is that many are anonymous or the writer uses an adopted name rather than their real name.

However, it may be possible to trace the author by obtaining an order for disclosure from the website owner and/or the internet service provider. This can be very expensive as the claimant will normally have to pay their own costs and the costs of the party who is asked to make the disclosures.

Our specialist lawyers can advise you on a more simple way to proceed, if the purpose is merely to remove a damaging publication. Where a publication appears on the web the writer is considered to be the publisher.

However, the person who controls the website and the company who provides the web-hosting service (the ISP) will also be considered to be publishers once they have been notified of the offending publication and asked to remove it. If they fail to do so, they also become liable and proceedings for libel can be brought against either or both of them. In most cases, following a notification and request to take down the publication, the offending message will be promptly removed. However this is not always the case. For example, if Google is notified that they are hosting defamatory matter they will not normally remove the material but will say that they will abide by any order made by the court.

Our libel solicitors can advise on the most appropriate course of action, depending what the person defamed wishes to achieve. If it is rapid removal of the defamatory posting, notice to the website owner and ISP is normally the best way to proceed. If disclosure of the identity of the original publisher is needed, then this may be possible but it is likely to be a costly exercise.

What an amazing world we live in this millennium. Publishing anything used to be only for a minority with access to the powerful. With simple Blog tools now anyone can broadcast, or even narrowcast their message out to the world.
It can be a broadcast message to a wide cross section or to a small niche. With power and even authority comes responsibility. What are the basic responsibilities of Bloggers and blogmasters of the world, or a webmaster when it comes to rules of law of slander and libel? What do these terms mean, what do they entail and what are the responsibilities and pitfalls of webmasters including editorializing Bloggers?

In terms of strict legal definition and definitions the term “libel” can be said to be defamation that is expressed in written, printed, even oral as well as basically any other form of communication in an audible or visual content. Hence you can include websites and blogs in this grouping. Once you publish your site – it’s out there on the web. It is visible and written. Even if its up for the briefest of times and then taken down , you can bet that somewhere on some computer server somewhere in the wide wide world of the world wide web , some hosting or webmaster server has cached and recorded it , most likely indexed by search engines as well.

Hence it pays to be most conservative before hitting the “publish” or “post”. A moment in haste can cause the webmaster or blogger time, effort and cost of legal bills down the road or perhaps the internet highway.

It is important that the person, organization or authority running a web-site, hosting a domain or posting, managing or even supervising a blog-roll, have a clear understanding of the legal as well as practical legal concepts involved in the forms and formats of slander and libel, as well as to comprehend what can and can not constitute a proven case of libel or slander.

Effectively by being aware of “the rules”, those in the know of internet publishing can both guard against the publication, and what may well constitute libelous activity which may be undependable in court or civil suit settings. On top of that if a case of libel or slander arises , the blog or webmaster / host-master / manager of a domain will be both in a much better situation , better prepared in terms of understanding the law and legal concepts involved , have a framework to both defend themselves and as well be able to both make their case . On top of that it’s a lot easier to explain the situation to a lawyer, lawyers or law firm without more ado. Read into this faster time of preparation, ease of getting a clear lawful and legal opinion or opinion from your barrister or solicitor.

Finally first and foremost your law bills should be substantially lower by the greatest degree. With proper and full explanation ,with the details of your case being presented in your initial meeting and legal assessment with the judicial professionals and officials involved they may quickly determine that the “other side” ( the one’s charging you with libel or slander ) have no case at all or what so ever. Hence your legal problems may be closed and shut down early on from the get go. Problem solved with conservative tactics, understanding of legal concepts and procedures and your solid preparation along the way.

In the end it can be said when posting or uploading by ftp to a website it never hurts to be cautious, conservative and err on the side of editorial and legal caution.

Definition of Defamation:
Defamation refers to the unconsented and unprivileged publications of a false idea whichtends to injure reputation.

Defamation is the aftermath of the following:

Slander:
It is oral defamation. It is injurious defamation by spoken words or by looks, signs, or gestures. Slander is also known as calumny.

Libel:
It is written defamation. It is malicious defamatory publication or statement. A person can be sued for defamation if he deliberately publishes the false idea that injures
reputation.

Publication:
Publication is the unconsented intentional or negligent communication of defamatory matter to a third parry. Publication includes any means of communication by which a third party actually receives the defamatory message. If you accuse a person privately of a fraud or incompetence you have no legal consequences. But if this accusation is made in front of a third person who is not privileged you may be subject to legal action.

Libellous and slanderous statements both are subject to legal action. Since libellous statements are more permanent, laws about libel are more severe than those about slander. Libellous communication Includes a letter, circular, picture, photograph, recorded tape, cartoon, news paper or phonograph record. Accidental communications to third persons, such as eavesdroppers or unauthorized letter readers, are not actionable.

Monitor what is being said about you or your company and protect yourself.

Search engine reputation is the the feeling a web surfer takes away when querying a search engine for a name, product, or service, regardless of whether the surfer clicks on any results.

Do it Yourself Reputation Management Monitoring  
While paying for monitoring can be very effective, individuals can use free tools to monitor their reputation online. Below is a number of free, quick, easy and effective approaches to monitor results for your name. 

Google Alerts  for Reputation Management
You can configure Google Alerts by different areas: News; Blogs; Web search results; Google Groups.

RSS  for Reputation Management
Create a folder in your RSS reader for reputation monitoring feeds. Create custom RSS feeds based on keywords: Technorati.com, Feedster.com, Google.com/blogsearch, Google News, Blogpulse.com, MSN Spaces, MSN News Yahoo! News, MSN News. Filter the feeds into one RSS Reader for easy monitoring options using Newsgator, Google Reader or Bloglines.

Create your own Reputation Management Search Engine  
Rollyo.com can track sites that do not offer RSS feeds for keywords such as Consumerist, Complaints.com, Better Business Bureau, RipOffReport, PlanetFeedback and ComplaintCenter.

Monitor This  
Monitor This allows you to monitor keywords across dozens of search engine feeds at the same time.

Reputation Management Key Words and Phrases  
Not sure what keywords to track? Use Google Keywords Tool for ideas.

Technorati  
One of the great search systems for bloggers is Technorati, which has a Watchlist feature.

Reputation Management URL Monitoring  
WatchThatPage, UpdatePatrol, and WebSite-Watcher monitor URLs.

Whois  
Research the background of bloggers and web site owners using domain name search tools such as Whois.sc.

Reputation Management Recommendations  
Please email recommendations to improve this page.

Negative Defamation, Libel, Slander Reports  

Removing Search Engine Defamation, Libel, Slander is Critical

Defamation, Libel, Slander Report Removal

We take Control of Search Engine Results!

Impact on Business:

Annoying Complaints:

Defamation, Libel, Slander Report Competitor Complaints:

Power of the Web:

Controlling or managing search rank for your own name is fairly easy for an SEO (search engine optimizer), but what can the average person do? Below I outline a number of free, quick, easy and effective ways to populate the first page of results for your name. I highly recommend people start creating content for their name now as it will be much more difficult after waiting for someone else with your name to muddy the search results to spur you to action.

1) Create a Reputation Management Blog Even if you build just a one-page site using your name on a free blog network, you can quickly use your blog to create pages about yourself and link to other pages you are going to create on this list. Use your name in the blog name. Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes Free Options: Blogger (blogspot), WordPress, LiveJournal

2) Create a Reputation Management Wiki Several wiki platforms have done a great job of creating publishing tools that are even easier to use than most blog technology. Though wikis are best suited for group collaboration, the will also work well helping you link to your blog and other pages. Use your name in the wiki name. Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes Free Options: Wetpaint, Wikia Wikia

3) Register your Reputation Management domain If you are lucky enough to have [insertyourname].com (or .net, .org, .info) available, snatch them up. The small fee is well worth it even if you don’t actively build a site using it because, at the very least, you are preventing your competition (other people with your name, or people who don’t like you) from ranking high for your name. Even better, use your domain for the site or wiki you are going to create.
Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes Cheap Options: Aplus.net

4) LinkedIn Reputation Management: Set up a LinkedIn profile and make it publicly available. Add background info like education, employment history, awards or certification (or anything else you are proud of). Add links to your other sites/pages. Estimated time to complete: 5-10 minutes

5) Jobster Reputation Management: Some people are a little shocked when they find out their profile shows up in search. Not you, because you want it to! Create a jobster account, allow it to be publicly available, fill out a little employment info, answer a couple questions, but write it keeping in mind that your current employer could come across it. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

6) Myspace Reputation Management pages tend to show up in search as well. Though Myspace has probably ruined more people’s reputations than helped, you will create a clean Myspace page for your name and, if you feel the urge, put the racy stuff on a different profile. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

7) Flickr Reputation Management accounts and images have a great chance of showing up in the engines, especially for image searches. Creat an account, upload a few photos you like and label them with your name. Estimated time to complete: 10 minutes

Comment on Popular Reputation Management Post’s: Sometimes I see a commenter’s name show up in search. Find a popular blogger site or newspaper site that allows comments, and find a post that you feel comfortable commenting on. Use your real name for the name field. Try this on a couple sites. Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

9) Employer Site If your employer features profiles on their website, ask them to add one for you. If not, talk them into it or author a post on their blog (if they have one). Estimated time to complete: 5-30 minutes, depending on your company

10) Join a Forum Do a search for a forum that you might want to participate on. For example, if you are into guitar, you should search for “guitar forum.” If it looks like a place where it would be easy for you to make five or six posts, then sign up and use your name for your profile name. Make your five posts and fill out your profile page with information about you and use your name at least once in the profile description. Estimated time to complete: 15 minutes

*Disclosure: I work for Wetpaint, but honestly believe their wiki solution is the best option

In the future, Facebook might also be an option. They recently allowed profiles set to public to be crawled, but they are showing logged-out status of your profile, which is basically your name and picture right now. Eventually, I believe, Facebook will open it up to show your full public profile (probably in ‘08).

Keep in mind, Google usually only shows two results for any one site. That’s why I have you contributing on multiple sites. A couple more tips:

• If you ever receive a great interview or bio online, link to it from your sites.
• For online activity that you don’t want to be associated with your name, use a nickname or “handle” that is completely different from your real name.
• If you have stiffer competition for your name, you may need to spend more time building out and linking to the various options I list above.

Other Reputation Management options:

a) Wikipedia If you have a strong brand you can list your company in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Estimated time to complete: 30-45 minutes, depending on your company

b) Press Releases Press releases do well in news search, and if you point a few links at them it could also help them outrank other pages. PRWeb is popular. Estimated time to complete: 30-45 minutes, depending on your company

c) Writing Articles This is another easy way to create content that is highly relevant to your brand or name at places like Article City. Estimated time to complete: 60 minutes, depending on your company

Please email recommendations to improve this page to reputationprofessor@gmail.com

Click for Reputation Management Services

Some complaint sites may be run by a competing company or its employees. In addition to disgruntled employees, ex-wives, ex-friends and consumers, companies may face Internet sites backed by environmental or other activist groups seeking to promote their political causes.

Complaint web sites have become the tool of choice for irritated customers, disgruntled employees, political activists and anyone else to air their bellyaches economically and effectively. Concealed by anonymity and powered by a worldwide audience, Internet complainers can impose chaos on your Company.

Reputation management is critical when considering fiscal implications. Reputation Management through analyzing and influencing search engine results, can prevent the loss of business or career and ensure ongoing success for you and your Company.

•More than 80 percent of executive and corporate recruiters research job candidates online, and 43 percent say they have turned down job seekers because of what they found, according to a study released August 2008 by ExecuNet.

•Online reviews are second only to personal advice from a friend as the driver of purchase decisions; user reviews are more influential than third-party reviews. (”Web users and web community,” Rubicon Consulting, Inc. October 2008)

•86% of consumers read online business reviews before making purchasing decisions; 90% of whom say they trust these reviews. (Kudzu.com survey of 600 users, December 2008)

•Almost two-thirds (62%) of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)

•When asked what sources of information they are “very likely” to consult before making a decision about their entertainment options, 62% named Web sites with user reviews as their top choice, even beating out a knowledgeable friend (59%). (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)

•Seven in 10 (69%) consumers who read reviews share them with friends, family or colleagues, thus amplifying their impact. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)

•74% agree-including 14% who strongly agree-that they choose companies and brands based on what others say online about their customer service experiences, the survey shows. (Society for New Communications Research, May 2008)

•More than eight in ten (82%) of those who read reviews said that their purchasing decisions have been directly influenced by those reviews. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)

Author Graeme Nichol Arcturus.

There have been many studies on credibility in life and particularly in management. It seemed like an interesting topic to read and reflect on. I am not going into a huge diatribe merely making a few observations.

In this world we live and die by our credibility. It takes years to build up a level of credibility and you have to maintain it constantly or lose it in an instant!

Credibility is an important aspect for a leader and trusted advisor. One of the interesting aspects is that there are three levels to your credibility. Namely how you perceive yourself, how others perceive you and finally how you are perceived within the organization. The perception by others maybe very local but for many managers and consultants who work globally this can have an extended web! Each of these needs to be in some form of alignment so as to be meaningful and deliver the results.

If we struggle to believe the persona we project how would we succeed? Look at successful credible people they have an aura of success. They project success. In management and in life we need to be positive to keep moving ahead and developing our credibility.

If you think you’re the cat’s whiskers and you colleagues have a different opinion. This would not be good. You have to try through a 360 degree evaluation to ensure some alignment on this.

Then look a little further out in your organization. How are you doing? How is your management team doing? Your company as a whole?

Credibility is the ultimate foundational for effective;
• Leadership/Team Building
• Relationship Development
• Coaching & Teaching
• Customer Service
• Sales

Credibility is; “The level of respect others have about you”

As credibility goes up, so does other’s willingness to;
• Believe what you believe
• Value what you value
• Support your plans
• Help you achieve your goals
• Be honest with you
• Trust you

What makes credibility increase and decrease?

• Behavior perceived as being appropriate (from the other person’s perspective – not yours) to time, tasks, people and situations, makes credibility increase.

• Behavior perceived as being inappropriate for the same factors makes it decrease.

Developing Credibility Behavioral Examples that Build

• Honesty
• Devotion
• Punctuality
• Good Example
• Ethical Behavior
• Taking responsibility for behavior
• Keeping promises
• Forgiving and Understanding
• Getting Involved
• Focusing on the Positive

Avoiding Credibility Behavioral Examples that Destroy

• Dishonesty
• Lack of Devotion
• No Concern for Time
• Setting a Bad Example
• Unethical Behaviour
• Breaking Promises
• Denying responsibility for Behaviour
• Unforgiving
• Not Involved
• Focusing on the Negative

Think how Kenneth Lay, and Jeff Skilling destroyed their credibility in the Enron debacle. I am not so sure that Martha Stewart’s credibility was damaged by her short stay in prison. She was not guilty of insider trading, which would have destroyed her credibility! Maybe he legal system took a hit. Perhaps more so internationally than locally. Kinda weird!

We wont discuss politicians. Each one could have a book written by the ebb and flow of their credibility.

Build your credibility and maintain it – your life does depend on it!

Author Nicola Nelson.

So, you spend time, money and effort ensuring the reputation of your company is exactly what you want it to be. But, have you considered your online reputation?

Online Reputation Management is becoming a buzz phrase in the online world as companies realise the damage that can be done to their reputation at the click of a mouse.

Imagine, you have completed a sales presentation to a prospective client – you have told them just how darn good you are and why you are the company for the job.

Now imagine that same customer leaves your meeting with a warm and fuzzy feeling but decide they should carry out a bit of Internet research to find out as much about you as they can. Lo and behold, they turn up some less than complimentary comments about your product or service on a few forums and blogs.

Ah, the beauty of the freedom of speech. That is all well and good when people are saying complimentary things, but imagine the damage when they are not. A disgruntled employee, a less than satisfied customer or maybe a serial complainer, could all be at the root of the problem.

It is a known fact that PR is more effective as a selling tool than Advertising, why? The reason is PR is deemed to be impartial. Large corporations have even taken to adopting this practice with their TV advertising – for example the very large Supermarket who instead of telling you what good value for money their goods are, have decided to employ the services of a much loved British Comedienne to do what? Sell? No, bake bread on TV. There is no “strap line”, no “sales pitch”, they have not taken this decision without doing some research into human buying behaviour!

With this in mind, how powerful do you think negative information about your goods or service will be when deemed to be ‘impartial’?

But don’t for one moment think that this situation is limited to big businesses. You only have to look at the number of ‘review’ websites there are now to see that it can affect all size of businesses.

Remember the old adage “a happy customer will tell 2 people, an unhappy one will tell 10 times that number!” well, add the Internet into the equation at 10 times could easily become 1000 times on the information super highway!

Brand Reputation Management, Internet Reputation Management.

Reputation Management Article Marketing Author:  Johnny Albertson

A positive reputation is a priceless asset to any business. The loyalty of a small group of customers is nice, but generally not enough to bolster sales and keep food on the table. As entrepreneurs, we are always looking for new ways to reach a greater number of people.

There are a million ways to get your name out there, some more effective than others. Our modern society offers marketing opportunities through television, radio, telephone, the Internet, and a vast array of print sources such as brochures and magazines. Your budget will likely dictate which of these methods you choose to utilize.

There is one method, however, that any business owner should take advantage of. Regardless of the size or success of the company, article marketing is a fast and cost effective way to legitimately market your company.

How to Get Started
There are three main steps to the article marketing process:

1. Begin by writing a batch of articles surrounding topics that relate to your business.

2. Submit the articles to an article distribution service. (You can attempt to submit them to content sites individually if you have a boat load of time to spend on the project.)

3. Watch as your articles are distributed to hundreds of sites and subsequently published all over the Internet. The best part is that all of these articles will have links back to your website, significantly increasing site traffic and company exposure.

Lots of websites have an insatiable hunger for fresh content. This is why these article distribution services have become so popular. They have formed relationships with many of these content sites who have come to trust them to provide well-written and informative articles.

Branding Through Article Marketing
Article marketing is one of the best ways to get your brand name on the public eye’s radar screen. When you provide interesting and engaging articles that pique readers’ interests, you are assured that many of these people will check out your company website. The more often people see your brand name, the more it becomes ingrained into their memory.

For instance, if your company produces highly efficient halogen bulbs, you might write a number of articles addressing energy consumption and conservation. Every time a reader sees one of these articles, they also see your brand name. Then, the next time they find themselves face to face with a burnt out light bulb, they will immediately think of your company. It’s all about putting a face to your name.

The Article Marketing Difference
Article marketing offers something different than other marketing efforts, which is why it has proven to be so effective in gaining positive exposure for the businesses that use it. Instead of bombarding the consumer with fancy sales jargon, these articles simply give the reader good information.

It’s like making an investment in the customer before they invest in you. By offering them something right off the bat, they are more likely to trust that you are interested in something more than just sell! sell! sell! It shows that you want to share your expertise about the industry you represent.

As the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. In my opinion, it’s always best to stick with the good publicity. Article marketing will help you do just that. Instead of turning people off through annoying advertisements, choose a different approach. Dispense a little wisdom up front and you are sure to turn potential customers into loyal customers.

The term “reputation management,” once squarely in the PR domain, is increasingly sneaking into the search engine marketing realm. Monitoring search results for complaint-speech (sometimes called “flames”) involving your brand name or trademarked words is extremely important. If users find a protest site in search results for your brand, they may click the link and believe what they read. Worse, they may base purchase consideration on the site’s content.

Reputation Ruined. Sale Lost.

Protest Web sites often seem believable, even when a complaint is trifling or unfounded. A site owner may or may not be willing to speak with you to resolve the matter.

Worse, a number of Web sites offer complaint forums. Sites such as the Rip-off Report, Epinions.com, even Edmunds.com have moderated discussion boards where unhappy customers post complaints. Discussion pages from these sites can show up in search results, sometimes near your listings, sometimes on broader, category-defining keyword phrases where you’re not found at all.

Imagine: The sole online voice speaking to your future customer is someone who hates you.

Reputation Management Strategy
Our search reputation management strategy is simple: Displace the offending search listings with favorable ones and with your own content.

Optimizing a company’s primary content — namely, its own Web site — is the best place to start. Often, a site has an abundance of non-optimized pages that can be leveraged, ranging from press releases to product specs that can quickly rank higher in results than a protest site. Optimizing partner, affiliate, or other content sources (with the partner’s cooperation) will usually accomplish the rest of the job.

Don’t Forget Paid Search Advertising
Companies’ brand reputation can be damaged in search advertisements, too. Though major search engines don’t allow advertisers to infringe on trademarked terms in text ads, a surprising number sneak by.

Recently, a company discovered a competitor advertising on its trademarked term and using the term as the title of a text ad in Google AdWords. Although Google prohibits such use, trademark holders must often bring offenses to Google’s attention. In this case, Google was alerted and the competitor was put on notice of the violation. The ad was taken down within days.

Reputation Management utilizes advanced tools to track pay-per-click (PPC) search ads on an ongoing basis. Unlike natural search results, PPC ads change by time of day. Some disappear as budgets expire. PPC ads from your competitors or trademark infringers are much more transient. They appear on some searches, not for others. They disappear on the weekends or evenings, and reappear during certain hours.

To complement our search engine optimization programs, Reputation Professor has a specialized team of seasoned search engine marketing professionals to assist in monitoring for and displacing protest sites. Unlike a traditional PR department, our team has the technical knowledge required to attain high rankings in natural search results. This is the singular skill most necessary to produce the desired result.

Though understanding the importance and nuances of reputation management is valuable, ability and experience in attaining a higher ranking than an offending site must be the primary consideration.

For more information on how we can search for and defend your company’s reputation, email Reputation Professor.

What is ReputationProfessor.Com Denouncement?

Libel and slander are the two categories of defamation in the United States. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.

Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being enclosed in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. For more details go to www.blog-and-ping.com. One of the major problems courts around the world have to deal with is the one of authority.

Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you temperate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you may be protected
Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be stride carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble.

1. Change the names. By far the easiest thing you can do is to change or to avoid using the name of the person you are talking about and to strip away as much identifying information as possible.

2. Make use of a disclaimer.
Even something as basic as “By making use of this blog site, you agree that the opinions expressed are the property and responsibility of their respective owners” may provide some defense in the event of a lawsuit. (Check with a real attorney please).

3. Consider writing your rant as a parody or satire. Extreme exaggerations that no sensible person would believe are not considered defamation because, quite frankly, they are unbelievable

4. Watch your language.
Be sure to use wording that makes it clear that this is your opinion about the subject.

5. And last but certainly not least, don’t tell false tales. Now this may seem like common sense but how common is common sense these days. For more information login to www.profit-pulling-toolbars.com. If you feel the need to resort to lying about a person, you may want to seek professional help in examining why you want to do that.

Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.

ReputationProfessor.Com Brand Strengthening Sherri Thomas.

What is your personal brand saying to others? Getting bigger promotions, better clients, and a richer career depends largely on how you are perceived by senior managers, team members, peers, and potential clients or employers. So to maximize your career opportunities and get into a career that actually inspires you to get out of bed in the morning turning cartwheels, let’s start by polishing up your personal brand.

1. Understand your value

Having a powerful personal brand means that you consistently deliver what you say you’re going to deliver. In other words, it’s the skills, experience, and value that you provide to your employer or clients. Whether it’s bringing in new streams of revenue, managing highly valued projects, developing creatively outrageous marketing campaigns, or whatever, your career is fueled by the value that you consistently deliver to employers.

Your value is a unique blend of your strengths, professional accomplishments, and personal characteristics (such as being a good leader, risk taker, problem solver, strategic thinker, etc.). All of these things combined make up your “value package” which makes you truly unique from a crowd of colleagues, business associates, and even job applicants.

2. Get into a career where you can thrive (not just survive!)

Being in a passionless job is a career killer! If you’re walking around dull and listless (like the Clairol Herbal Essence girl before she shampoos her hair), then others are sure to see you that way. It’s impossible to have a powerful personal brand if you’re just going through the motions at work. You need to be in a career that challenges you, flexes your professional muscles, and excites you!

Think about yourself three years from now. Do you want to be working for the same company, or the same clients, doing the same kind of work that you’re doing today? If the answer is no, then think about what you want to be doing. Start by identifying the three key ingredients you need in the work itself to be happy and fulfilled such as leading teams, working on creative projects, developing new technologies, etc. Once you’ve defined the three key ingredients that you need to be excited in your job, then do whatever it takes to drive your career towards that vision.

3. Send the right messages

Everything you do and say sends messages to your manager, senior managers, clients, peers, and potential employers. Your words, actions, presentations, reports, work deliverables, and professional accomplishments, shape the perceptions others have about you and the value you provide.

So you should take every opportunity to send a very clear message that you are a high quality and results-driven contributor. Talk about the successes of your projects and teams, and the benefit they’re providing to the company. Talk about the obstacles that your team overcame, and the lessons learned. This is where you are an asset to a company or client. When you send the message that you consistently deliver something of value to your employer or clients, you are not only creating a powerful personal brand but you are also developing an emotional connection in which they feel that they need you.

4. Network strategically

If you want bigger promotions, better clients, and a richer, more meaningful career you need to work with (and network with!) people who value and appreciate you. Otherwise, you’ll be living in a frustrating world, spending precious time and energy to accomplish things, yet receiving very little in return.

Focus on creating a strong support system of what I call, career influencers. These are people who can hire you, promote you, inspire you, teach you, and open doors to new opportunities. Identify those managers, clients and colleagues who know and appreciate your work and nurture your relationships with them. Keep them updated on your professional accomplishments. Ask about their career path and strategies for blasting through challenges and roadblocks. Seek out people who can give you the roadmap, guidance, and inspiration to advance your career.

5. Think of yourself on a stage

Think about how you want others to perceive you. Do you want to be recognized as being smart? Strategic? Having specific expertise? A great leader? Whatever it is, you should be striving to send that message loud and clear.

Every day you have opportunities to shape and manage your personal brand. In every presentation or update that you give, in every meeting you attend, in all your conversations with other professionals – think of yourself as being on a stage. It’s your opportunity to shine and get noticed.

Powerful personal brands don’t happen overnight. It takes time, focus, and commitment, but the payoff is huuuuuge. Imagine a world where you wake up and actually start turning cartwheels )/
Sherri Thomas is President of Career Coaching 360, an international speaker, and author of “Career Smart – 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand.” Career Coaching 360 Career Coaching provides career planning, management coaching, and leadership development support to help professionals change careers quickly and easily.

What is a ‘personal brand?’

Whether you are aware of it or not, everyone has a personal brand. Your personal brand is what sets you apart from the world. It can be likened to your competitive position – it’s what makes you and your business stand out in a world where standards and quality differ.

So what makes you stand out from the crowd? Everyone is different; so what’s different about you?

Are you a good negotiator? Are you super organised? Do you exude charisma and charm? Couple these qualities with your unique life experience and you have the building blocks for your personal brand!

Having a good personal brand will get you where you want to be in life. If you are an employee with a great personal brand, you’re more likely to get a promotion or pay rise.

For business owners, your personal brand adds value to your business brand.

Isn’t it time you showed everyone what you’re truly worth?

Here are 5 tips that will build your personal brand, draw others to you and enhance your business reputation.

1. Rediscover yourself.
Do a little soul searching. Ask yourself, what makes me special? What is in me that others love and that I love? In other words, what are your strengths and unique personal qualities? What are you better at than anyone else in your industry? In marketing jargon, we call this your ‘unique selling proposition.’

The best way to discover your strengths is to ask others for feedback.

2. Pay attention to your ‘packaging’.
As superficial as it sounds, your personal packaging is important. It is others’ first impression of what’s inside. You know that great packaging is what will make you buy Perrier bottled water over the home brand one. You want others to ‘buy’ you. Get them on your side. How do you look, dress and speak? Start with a friendly confident smile and good posture. Dress as the person you want to be in 3-5 years from now. Look the part, and people will see you as this person.

3. Be good at what you do.

Don’t waste your energy on trying to change little weaknesses in your life. They are an intricate part of who you are. Instead, pour all your energy into your strengths and polish them until you positively shine! Spend time on the work that you know will achieve the biggest benefit to your organisation, clients and your career.

4. Make a name for yourself.

Now you know what you’ve got to offer, put it into action! How? Put your hand up for special projects, especially those where you’ll come into contact with key decision makers in your organisation or industry. Join a professional group in your industry – attend regularly and get involved. Run seminars, contribute to blogs, write articles… anything that gets your name ‘out there’ in a positive way.

5. Do your best to help others.

Get to know the people around you and find out how you can sincerely help them, even in small ways. Being a supporter of others and working with them is a win-win situation! Encourage others, help them achieve their goals and you’ll find they want to do the same for you.

Building your personal brand is about finding out what’s great about you. Then in a intelligent way, let everyone else know! Find ways to add value to your organisation and your colleagues. If you can do this, opportunities will come to you.

A step-by-step guide to building your personal brand

It’s the start of a new year… and the start of new adventures and fresh opportunities to grow yourself! So achieve what you want this year:

1. Go back and look at each of these five items. Get a pen and paper and write down your own ideas and answers to each one.

2. Make them into a plan. Look at where you are now, and where you want to be in the next 3-5 years. Write down step-by-step specific actions required to reach each goal.

3. Put a deadline against each action. When are you going to achieve this by? Make it realistic but put some pressure on yourself.

You’ll be amazed at how such small actions can make all the difference to your life.

Need some help in getting started?

We’d love to help you. Contact Dianne by filling out the form below and she will send you our ‘Powerful Planning Tool’ plus an Ideas List to help you complete these steps to building your personal brand.

With over 25 years as the co-owner of a successful engineering business employing 30 staff, combined with a background in leadership development and education, Dianne has a wealth of experience to draw upon. Dianne’s practical experience is supported by qualifications in coaching, training, human resource management and business.

As a business management and leadership coach, consultant, speaker and trainer, Dianne is passionate about helping people and organisations discover and realise their potential. She believes that life is too short not to enjoy what you do and she helps her clients to discover their unique purpose, strengths and passion and build a successful and satisfying life around them.
a. Have a look at Anderson Gray Worldwide – http://www.anderson-gray.com

How to Handle Customer Complaints

ReputationProfessor.Com Complaints by Robert Moment.

There is a misconception lingering about in the business world that customers who complain are usually too demanding and hence a nuisance. Another misconception is that customers who don’t complain are an indication that a company is doing things right and thus heading in the right direction.

The truth is however, customers who complain are actually carving out opportunities for a business to improve its customer service and resolve any undetected problems for long-lasting profitable growth.

Research has also shown that customers who complain are far more likely to remain loyal to a business if the complaint is resolved quickly. The opposite is true of customers who have problems with a company but don’t complain, opting to shop or to do business with its competitor instead.

Bearing this in mind, let’s examine five customer service tips you can use right now to turn complaints into sales.

1. Listen Intently

Complaints are actually very valuable and they ought to be analyzed. Such data can be used to improve your products or services and analyzed to develop new ideas for product development. When a customer complains, it is well worth the time and effort to pay careful attention to what the customer is complaining about. Take this opportunity to talk to the customer about ideas they might have to resolve the issue.

What you might end up with is a goldmine of information obtained at no cost that can eventually be used to create more sales, simply because you listened.

2. Be Professional

Coaxing a vexed customer to be constructive in their criticism is made more difficult if you’re unable to take control of the situation. The simplest way to take charge of a situation where an angry customer is in “full flight” is to stay calm, be polite and maintain professionalism. It won’t be too long before the customer realizes he is overreacting and apologizes for his outburst.

3. Two Words, “I’m Sorry”

When customers complain, they are often seeking acknowledgement of the problem, empathy and most importantly, an apology. If none of these “criteria” are met by the company, the customer will walk away never to come back. Or worse, it may ensue into a public battle. Adopting a defensive stance rarely works with an unhappy customer, even if you weren’t in the wrong. The best solution would be to offer an apology and acknowledge that the company will take full responsibility for its mistake. An apology is to the customer what a pacifier is to a baby.

4. Work To Resolve Complaints Quickly

Delight the customers who have lodged complaints with quick solutions to their problems. Many of us are familiar with the “I’ll look into it” phrase, but never to hear a peep from the customer service department again. Stand out from your competitors by working to resolve your customers’ issues quickly. Keep them informed of what you have done, checking to ensure that they’re satisfied with the outcome and compensate them for their troubles. With customer service this good, your customers can’t help but to show their appreciation by sticking around a lot longer.

5. Form A Customer Focus Group

Tap into the collective wisdom of your customers by soliciting feedback or surveying them on complaints you had received. This can be easily achieved by creating a special page on your website or blog. It’s a good idea to do this because sometimes a complaint might sound reasonable and making a change seems feasible, but most of your customers might think differently. By gathering their opinions before implementing any changes, it can save you from making a bad business decision that could ultimately prove costly.

There’s every possibility that you may encounter the occasional serial complainer whose only ambition in life is to make people miserable. You can spot such customers a mile away and they very rarely contribute to the growth of your company. Fortunately, these types of complainers are few and far between and don’t make for very loyal customers.

The ones that do offer constructive criticism disguised as complaints on the other hand, should be thought of as your personal marketing consultants that pay you to listen to them. It doesn’t get much better than that.

  

Fairwindsweb.com Online reputation management helps search engines display the best possible search results about a company, product, service, or individual. Reputation management involves measuring online sentiment, identifying positive and negative search results, then promoting positives and eliminating or suppressing negatives. Reputation management often includes the creation of relevant, highly placed online content properties that can be controlled, thereby reducing possible reputation damage by third-parties.

What Does fairwindsweb.com Online Reputation Management Accomplish?

Create a Barrier Against Negative Search Results

Prevention is the best medicine. By creating and promoting positive online content about yourself or your brand, and insuring search engines find it highly relevant, you can create a strong barrier against most forms of negative search results. A reputation barrier is accomplished through new content creation, existing content promotion, and aggressive search engine optimization. When negative search results find their way online, strong positive search results can keep the negative supresssed on pages further back – effectively eliminating it from view.

Control Over Online Perception

Fairwindsweb.com Online reputation management enables companies and individuals to control up to 100% of first page search results. This helps insure the information people see when performing a search is the content you want them to see. The process is begun by carefully creating relevant search content like blogs, social media, press releases, articles, and other material. Relevant content is then placed on these properties over time in a natural manner. Content is updated on a schedule while a social media and optimization network is created around the positive content. The combination of targeted web properties, promoted existing pages, fresh relevant content, and an optimized search network produce online reputation control sites that tend to dominate the first pages of search results. This sophisticated network is then used as a tool to control online perception in search engines.
Remove Negative Search Results

Some online content can be removed by getting the content owner to either remove it, or place special HTML tags on the page so that search engines no longer include those pages in search results. What cannot be removed is moved to pages further back and replaced in search results by strong positive web content. Since up to 95% of searches only take place on the first page (about 42% in the first position alone), negative content removal can be as effective.

Reposition (Move Up) Positive Search Results

Many of fairwindsweb.com clients simply want to put their best face forward. These often include politicians, high (and low) profile executives, companies, or people in the job market. A sentiment analysis shows how a company or individual is perceived in search results in either a negative, neutral, or positive manner. The most positive search results are often on page two, three, or further back – where they are not often seen. By identifying positive reputation search results and aggressively promoting them over time, the first page of search results changes to reflect the best information possible. By simply repositioning positive search results online perception can be dramatically altered.

Your goal is to rank as high as possible, for as many of your most important keywords in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. That’s it! To do this you need a compelling website with good search engine optimization (SEO) both onsite and offsite. The hard part which takes a lot of time and effort is getting other sites to link to yours. This is the key to our link services. 

How Google’s algorithm ranks websites:

1. The volume of incoming links to a webpage.
2. The quality of the incoming links to a webpage.
3. The anchor text (link text) of the incoming link to your webpage.

We offer all 3 kinds of link services from creating bulk links through to high quality

Why you need different kinds of link services?

All links are not created equal. Firstly you require a large number of related one way links which are often called ‘bulk links’ or ‘global links’. Next you require quality links with high TrustRank. At the top level you need a number of very highly trusted authority links from closely related sites which are very popular. From top to bottom the number of links you require increases and depends on the competitiveness of the keywords you are targeting and the industry you are in.

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting websites. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is extremely time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is crazy. That’s where we come in, our link services are designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark websites.

Local Business Listings: 86% of local searchers follow up by making a direct contact and 61% of those make a purchase. New, local, and mobile searchers want to do business with you, if they can find you. We provide local link services anywhere.

Web Directories get one-way links. We increase your link approvals by ensuring directory guidelines and submitting under the most relevant category. Contact us today about our web directory link services.

Blog comments can build quality one-way links back to your site.  We read each blog post and in turn leave a quality comment that is beneficial to both you and the blogger. Blog comment link services can be a great addition to your link portfolio.

Forum Posting assists in enhancing image for your business by demonstrating your competence, and makes a positive impression with your capabilities. Link services using forum sites can be very beneficial.

Please contact us and we will advise you how we might be able to use our link service to help earn links back to your site.

Gadook services a diverse Link Services customer composition from our Orlando, Florida headquarters. In essence, no matter what the nature of your organization, or what industry you operate in, we have solutions to fit your Link Services needs.