Hello I am new here and I hope this is posted in the right section. My company has been victim of some bloggers posting defamatory comments about us and though we managed to get the blogs to take the untrue comments down, now we are suffering from a different type of defamatory action. When I google my company name there is a second page entry that links one of our (legitimate) press releases to this blog that has stories unrelated to our business and the title of our press release is our company name plus the word "fraud" We have tried to contact the webmaster of the blog but the address returns a failed delivery status notification, ie the contact does not exist. Also if I search for the article within the site it does not show up it only shows up from the link on my google search. Can anyone please tell me, in your experience, how a company name is appearing on this blog with the title "fraud - and our company name"? I do not have an IT background so please if you could explain in the most lamens term possible I would really appreciate it.
In most cases, these are protected by the freedom of speech (considering that you're in the USA). It depends on what is being said - if it looks like downright libel (extremely damaging to your company, threatening, accusing you of doing illegal things, etc), then a lawyer should review it and give you an assessment. If they are infringing on your copyrights by copying your press releases, then that is yet another issue that your lawyer will have to review.
Thanks for the response Pixelrage. I don't see how this could be protected by freedom of speech when the post is defamatory in its intent? As I mentioned earlier the page on this blog displays one of our press releases written by our marketing department which also appears on other sites, but on this particular site it appears with the following title " *name of our company* and *Fraud*" In terms of SEO this result shows up on the second page of our company results, and it is extremely misleading to have the word "fraud" linked to our company name, it is costing us loss of clients and creating a lot of necessary uneasiness about our business. How is it possible that a page like this shows up with one of our press releases with that title on a completely foreign blog about something totally unrelated to our business? There is absolutely no doubt that this comment is defamatory in its intent so please let's move on from trying to speculate about that, my question is how does this happen? What is driving this? Does anyone have any experience with this at all?
These are scrapper sites that are just looking for traffic based on keyword searches. I highly doubt results on a second page is causing you a loss of business as the vast majority of searchers ever go past the first page of results - and especially since it isn't detailing any specific occurrence. If they don't respond to your emails, there is nothing you can really do except take legal action, which is going to be so expensive (thousands of dollars or more) it isn't something you even want to do - especially considering it is a foreign blog. If you really believe you are losing tens of thousands of dollars in business because of this post, and are willing to spend an equal amount or more, then consult with an IP attorney where the site owner is located.
@mjewel Did you even read my opening post? It's not that they do not respond to my emails it is that their contact information on the website doesn't even exist. My emails bounce back, ie it is bogus contact info. Your skepticism is your prerogative, what I am telling you is fact. Our business handles people's money so any bit of negative press that is fabricated on us online, contributes to the loss of trust from our clientele. I would prefer if people focused on my actual question please and not on speculating over the details surrounding the actual question. This: These are scrapper sites that are just looking for traffic based on keyword searches. is quite possible. I have heard this suggestion before, could someone please explain this better? Who or what creates these scrapper sites? We have taken legal action in past against defamatory comments posted against our organization and we will do it again if need be. It was easy enough to catch the culprits however in this instance, and as I mentioned earlier, the site is a site that has a dead contact feature and when I search for our press release within the site it does not show up yet if I Google our company name the link to the site it does come up in the second page. Lastly to those who are questioning why we even care: if someone had posted personal defamatory comments about you, would you care less because they appear on a second page of a Google search? I highly doubt that, so why do you expect our business to care any less than you would?
commspro - check their WHOIS data and see if you can contact their administrative email. If it's hidden, that's a problem...
If you have taken legal action before, you should know that having false contact information isn't going to stop you from serving the owner of the site. File a lawsuit, get a court order so their registrar will be forced to disclose information that will allow you to serve the owner of the site. They had to pay for the domain, you can obtain this information, as well as IP information for who is administrating the site. All it is going to cost is money. My former company had locations in 32 states and over 500 employees, and every company at some point is going to have a negative view of them posted on the net. Again, a second page listing isn't going to be significant in the success or failure of your business. You can't name a single successful business of any size that doesn't have something negative posted about them on the net. Depending on where the site owner lives, you may or may not be able to legally force them to remove your company. This is something that you should be discussing with an attorney. I can tell you, from personal experience, that this could easily cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees - fees you aren't likely to recover. If it is worth it to you, then you should be meeting with an attorney ASAP.
thank you again Pixlerage, I appreciate your help. So I did that and I got a a name for the registrant and it says they are registered through Godaddyinc. now what can I do with that? Can Godaddy release information on them?
Yes I do know that and at this point we are trying to avoid incurring extra costs, since this situation is distinctly different. In past we had posts made on a blogging site and there was direct contact information to the blog admin which we dealt with directly. In this instance it is completely different in that there is no contact info for the site and I needed help in tracking down the site. I already know all that, again that was not my question but thanks for sharing anyway.
Only if you file a cease & desist for trademark infringement...I'm pretty sure you can reveal it if you're pursuing a court case against them. Send off an email to Godaddy and see what they say - it usually takes them about 1 day to get back to emails.
@alexispetrov no, that's not the name I found. I looked up your guy he is a google adwords guy apparently, I did do research on the registry name that comes up on Godaddy and I found nothing on the guy @pixelrage good suggestions. I actually called Godaddy directly last week after I posted here and they basically washed their hands of the whole thing. They said in the best case scenario they could contact the site that has our stuff on it and ask them to remove the comment but that they don't have to because they could argue the content of that posting is valid. They told me that the site could very well be receiving my emails and choosing to ignore them. I explained to them that it was not that they were ignoring us, but that their contact email was downright defunct. In the interim though the site did post a new email address which does work and I have since emailed them several times and still nothing. Oh another suggestion by Godaddy was to speak to their legal department but I wanted to give the culprit site a few days to respond, and since they have not I will follow up tomorrow. The support guy at Godaddy said there isn't much more legal can do. I sort of understand Godaddy's response and their need to maintain neutral in the matter, we are both clients of theirs. I do understand why they would not want to be involved in the crossfire.