Has your business recently stopped growing? Are you being
shunned by previously valuable commercial contacts? This is what was happening
to a client that we recently acted for. A successful entrepreneur who saw the
business that he had worked hard to create for the past 10 years, brought to
its knees within six weeks due to an anonymous online blog, ranking first on
Google whenever his name was searched.
Celebrities are always in the media and lately, we hear a
lot about them being defamed online and in the newspapers. The potential effect of this defamation to
their line of work is huge – but with the assistance of their media and PR teams,
more often than not, they survive this attack on their public reputation. Being in the public eye, receiving both good
and bad publicity goes with the territory.
However, current trends show that it is not celebrities and
those in the public eye that are the main victims of online defamation. Businesses and entrepreneurs have taken the
top spot and the effect on them has been devastating. This particular client
was a successful entrepreneur, having worked hard to build the success of various
businesses for 10 years, on an international scale. However, when he lost out
on a particularly lucrative contract in Africa, things simply started to tumble
and he could not understand why. He began losing more and more contracts: his
usually reliable contacts where shunning him, which put the viability of his
business in serious jeopardy.
The reason for this? An online blog posted by an anonymous
user on a Google platform, claiming that my client was a con-artist and a
fraudster, running complex scams: allegations that were posted without any
evidence as to their truth. Having always done business in the old fashioned
way, my client never thought such things were possible, and never thought to
even ‘Google’ his name. He found out about this blog, because he pushed and
pushed for his African contact to explain to him why his lucrative deal had not
gone through. The blog was eventually revealed to him and he was dumbfounded.
He ‘Googled’ his name and found this offending blog as the top THREE results on
Google. He was completely confused,
upset and angry that someone would want to attack him in this way. Feelings of
frustration soon followed, when he could not discover who was behind the blog.
He even went as far as personally attending Google’s UK offices in an attempt
to beg them to help, which they could not do as they have nothing to do with
the search engines and Google websites.
He found us, and we resolved what can only really be
described as a desperate issue for him.
His business was literally at crisis point. We immediately used our
network of contacts within Google to action the removal of the offending blog.
We then attacked the veil of anonymity which the anonymous blogger was hiding
behind. We did this by obtaining a Norwich Pharmacal Order from the High Court
in London, which we then served on Google in the United States. Google provided
us with information concerning the user account of the anonymous blog. Google,
to its credit, has a robust signing up processes, which generally prevents
accounts being set up via fake email accounts. In this particular case the ‘smoking gun’ came from the secondary
email address registered by the anonymous user on Google. The secondary email
address is used by Google in cases where a user forgets their password i.e. a
new password is emailed to you at the secondary email address. The anonymous
blogger was not as clever as he thought, as the secondary email address had his
full name and work contact details attached. From there, all we had to do was track
him down.
Our client already felt empowered, as he had successfully
identified the person who had tried to destroy his business and crush his
entrepreneurial spirit. This person was in fact an ex-employee of his.
However, our client did not stop at this. He wanted his
reputation recovered and he wanted justice. We formally instigated libel
proceeding in the High Court against the ex-employee. These proceedings
resulted in the ex-employee being ordered to pay substantial sums in
compensation for libel to our client for the damage he had caused to the
reputation of our client and his businesses. He was also ordered to make a
public apology stating unequivocally that the allegations he had made in the
blog were untrue, and undertaking that he would not make such allegations again
in the future. Our client had succeeded in obtaining justice and reviving his
reputation. His business is now firmly back on the way up, his colleagues and
contacts flooding back in their droves.
This type of behaviour is happening more and more and is
generally perpetrated by people close to home (or business). In our specialist
Internet Law Department here at Bains Cohen, we are seeing that more and more businesses
are being targeted by ex-employees, disgruntled customers or ruthless
competitors seeking an ‘edge ‘in the market, utilising mainly anonymous blogs
and anonymous posts online.
Our advice - DO
NOT BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND HOPING IT WILL GO AWAY… IT WON’T.
Those who run businesses are used to making tough and
uncompromising decisions. Do not let issues of online defamation obstruct your
decision making. For each day that you delay taking action, the more damage is
done to your company’s reputation. We
can help, but you need to first contact us and make yourself known. This is the
first and hardest step to fighting back against the online defamation against
your business.
John Spyrou
Head of Media and Internet Law
Bains Cohen Solicitors LLP
p.s. watch this space where I will be writing further
articles, specifically on the above client, using real life names, legal
procedures and tactics under the title ‘The
Power of the NPO’.
