According to the December 28th prnewswire.com press release, “UNDER ATTACK: Americans Fight Back Against False and Defamatory Comments on PissedConsumer.com”, consumer websites such as PissedConsumer.com, a for-profit consumer feedback portal, are apparently not taking efforts to ensure that the information posted at the site is indeed factual – nor do they need to, according to federal law. While this has clearly spawned disastrous results for businesses, it's also created an opportunity for damage control, in the form of online reputation management firms.
Passed in 1996, the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was originally instituted by the U.S. Congress so as to control the proliferation of pornography online. However, it turned out to be somewhat of a double edged sword – Section 230 of the Act permitted broad interpretation. In other words, the section reads: “the operator of a website or an Internet-based service could not be considered a traditional "publisher," and hence could not be held legally liable for any words or comments posted by an unrelated third party who uses the website and/or service,” per the article. This language is what has allowed websites like PissedConsumer.com not only to be created, but has afforded users of the site protection, regardless of what they post.
The sometimes fraudulent comments posted at consumer feedback websites have caused all types of companies to suffer loss of reputation, income, and customers, as well as stress. The solution? Companies like Reputation Changer step in and clean up the mess. How? Through a focused campaign of not only controlling the negative information, but concentrating on positive, true facets of a business and its mission. In addition, Reputation Changer's software tracks both the company's name and any negative feedback in real time, allowing for instantaneous damage control.
Attorney James Morgan suffered a number of fraudulent postings, and made use of the services of Reputation Changer. He was quoted as saying in the press release: “It felt like my law office was under attack and it all started because of a false accusation and defamatory posting on PissedConsumer.com. All of a sudden, everything snowballed. Potential and current clients would search my name on Google and pull up this bad information. Our core business turned into daily explanations on how this information wasn't true or representative of the business that we did. Clients started leaving and the phone stopped ringing, I thought we were going to have to close the doors, but then we discovered Reputation Changer.”
Founded in 2009, Reputation Changer has provided services for politicians, professional athletes and high profile public personalities, in addition to Fortune 500 companies.
