Corporations Fight Online Anticorporate Statements

TheLocustNMI writes "This is an interesting article at BusinessWeek about eWatch, a company that specializes in tracking the comments of, and garnering personal information about folks with a beef with a company. The service isn't cheap, upwards of $5,000 per "screenname". This was apparently used against Northwest Airlines sick-out employees last Christmas. The BusinessWeek article seems to hint that eWatch is used primarily to root out uncomplimentary messages on "rouge" web sites. So, should we be careful about what we post here, Usenet, or anywhere else? Especially if we post about our own companies? Interesting indeed..."

Don't Invoke the First Amendment

The First Amendment protects our right to say what we wish. It does not mean that we are to be held unaccountable for our words, but simply that we will not have our liberty or possesions taken away because of it. If you organize a "sick-out" and your employer finds out who you are, expect to be fired. If you complain about a company's product, the company has every right to track you down and convince you that the product is good -- they are also protected by the 1st -- but that doesn't mean you have to listen.

Before anyone (else) claims that your right to free speech is being eroded, ask yourself from where you derive your right to unaccoutably.

Re:That depends

If your /. handle isn't linked to anything with your name on it, there's just no way to track you through it unless people use your real name in responses to your posts, or you do.

Court subpoena -> Slashdot server logs -> your IP address -> { ISP logs if necessary } -> your identity.

This can be dealt with by accessing Slashdot only through an anonymizer (public access terminal, the Anonymizer, Freedom network, etc.) but it's waay too big of a hassle for most people.

Kaa

Whew!

I'm glad *SOMEBODY* is looking out for all these poor corporate megaliths..

Re:Sorry Sir, but you're wrong...

And, never forget that it's somewhat hard to hand out your log files if your disk has just crashed...

Especially if it just crashed because you accidentally dropped it in a vat of molten metal while "taking it out to clean the connectors."

Rouge?

I think you meant "rogue". Unless it only scans those pinkish-reddish web sites...

I'd never put anything on a web site of that color, so I guess I'm safe.

Nah...

You can SAY all you want about them. What, might have to take responsibility for your words? Oh no!

Not that I'm all for this, mind you. If you fear retribution for your words for whatever reason, you'll just have to be more sneaky. Currently the niche for corporations who want to be sneaky is paying more than the niche for their employees who want to be sneaky. Will this always be the case? Might be some money in hooking up with a union and investigating how to be sneaky back, for instance.

As a friend of mine points out, there are some legitimate cases where a corporation should be able to find out the name of a person; for instance in the case of actual slander or manipulation of the stock market through fradulent information posted on the net. However, there are also times when an employee should have the right to privacy in his communications. And since the legal system seems to be lagging about a century behind current technology, the whole landscape has yet to be mapped.

Anonymity? Hello?

I can't believe that things like this happen and still we're going to be hearing people in the future talk about how people who speak anonymously are being irresponsible or childish.

This type of thing only reinforces in my mind the need to have anonymous speech available as a tool for citizens to use, since you may want to be able to express your opinion without worrying about gestapo style tactics from companies who find out that you don't like their product.

Re:Huh? What Good Is This?

Those goddamned unionists. Who do they think they are asking for better wages or better treatment. They should just do what they are told and be glad they have jobs in the first place. Fire them all! Let's institute slavery again! cheap prison labor for the good of the corporations! Screw the people they are only resources to be used!

Re:Huh? What Good Is This?

Let's suppose that you're an employer involved in contract talks with the union. Such talks are *heavily* regulated, with all kinds of potential nasty behavior made illegal under federal law.

One of these illegal acts, under appropriate circumstances, is a strike. Another is a "sick-in".

Let's further suppose that during bitter talks, half of your employees call in sick on the same day. Given that other employers, even those with employees working alongsideyours at the airport, didn't have abnormal sick counts, you suspect that it's the union's doing. Are you being unreasonable in thinking this? [And if you are, why would the union do it???]

You lose hundreds of millions of dollars by being essentially shut down for the day with no advance notice. For some reason, this makes you unhappy. It would *easily* be worth $5k for you to do a search for any evidence showing who organized this criminal act against you.

This is roughly what happened in the airline case; it wasn't a matter of general snooping about in employee's affairs, but a matter of routine discovery involving other parties (the employees) to litigation.

Basically, faced with a sickout, you know that there's some organization going on; it's a matter of finding it.

hawk, esq., not giving legal advice.

Don't trust your ISP

This just means that you shouldn't trust your ISP not to fink on you. If you want anonymity, go through an anonymizing service.
-russ

A two-edged sword

As the article says, if a corporation used this aggressively, this could create a /. effect of negative publicity. It is free speech, and censorship just creates a stronger backlash.

That said, since I own stocks in a number of corporations, how would one suggest wording a shareholder proposal to stop the corporation from using this in an extra-legal or aggressive manner?

Ideas?

Re:It doesn't have to be a lie to be censored

Obviously companies aren't concerned that the information is correct at all; they're more concerned that it's true. That said, there are many *many* companies which routinely spread lies and misinformation (they call it marketing). Certain chemical companies, for example, have multimillion dollar PR campaigns to convince the public their products are environmentally safe, while at the same time spending a comparable sum in lobbying efforts to get environmental protections weakened.

All these companies are doing the same thing as the tobacco companies have been exposed as doing for years, yet no one flinches when McDonalds blatantly breaks fair animal treatment laws, or when Disney blatantly breaks labor laws. Why? Advertising, PR, marketing. Tobacco companies have been restricted in their means of advertisment for a long time, which means any PR moves by them are ineffective. Plus, they're the perfect scapegoat. The horrible things that tobacco companies have done are so horrible that no one wants to believe Disney is just as, if not more, ethically suspect. Disney, the one who makes all those cute cartoons and owns mickey mouse.

Anyway, I'm really not going off-topic. It's not about punishing libel or anything like that, it's about censoring the truth, it's about union busting, it's about maintaining control over the captive public whose wrath it seems has no (monetary) limit given the sums now expected in anti-tobacco cases. This is *exactly* the thing oppressive governments do. What you don't know can't hurt you, they say. Well, it's more like what your enemies (consumers) don't know can't hurt the companies.

eWatch may have their nice little mission statement about "Stopping the spread of lies" but whatever their mission, the companies they serve have their own agenda.

And I wonder, who decides what's truth and what is lies? Why, the lawyer with the biggest salary, of course.

corporate terrorism

it is VERY necessary to have a place online to air grievances with companies, and companies are always invited to respond.

I have received letters from attorneys in the past for content from my site (don't ask, long story) and posting the emails word-for-word seemed to ensure that i never received anymore from them.

hmmm, if anyone wanted to DoS ewatch's network, it wouldn't bother me at all.

Plenty of ways to quash dissent...

And exactly what is the purpose of this information? Are they going to put a contract out on your head? Are they going to start harassing you? Black list you with employers? Threatening you? Subscribe you to dirty magazines and order pizzas to your house?

If you're an employee, you could be fired. Maybe you're an employee of a subsidiary or company in a "strategic partnership" with the object of your complaints.

Example: Bob works at Hughes as, say, a satellite broadcast technician in their DBS division. He's had several unfavorable experiences with Chevrolet cars, and posts them on his personal website and in several newsgroups. Some sharp-eyed soul at General Motors, parent of Chevrolet and Hughes, sounds the Independent-Though Alarm and Bob's boss makes it clear to Bob that continued employment or advancement in his position at Hughes is contingent upon his silence on the matter of his distaste for things Chevrolet. To make things more interesting, say Bob's finances aren't too great and he's got three dependent kids, so quitting is not an option. What does Bob do?

One need not be affiliated with a company to be silenced, either. The object of your criticism could go to your ISP with a C&D for libel and have your critical website pulled w/o so much as a fare-thee-well. Of course, you could take the company you're criticizing to court to prove your statements to be true, if you could afford the time and legal fees. Most people can't. And if your ISP is in cahoots with or owned by the person you're criticizing (*cough*AOL Time Warner*cough*AT&T*cough*@home*cough* *wheeze* *splutter*), you're already scrood.

The more people turn to the internet for product information, the more producers are likely to attempt to coopt the information sources. They're not after you for vengeance, they just want you to shut up so you don't drive other customers away.

-Isaac

Probally Violates FTC Regs

IANAL, however, the langauge that is used to describe what the company does such as "will receive a dossier detailing all information gathered about the subject during the inquiry." could classify them as a CRA (Credit Reporting Agency). This means that information they put into their report could be subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If this is the case then it brings many consumer protections.

William Haynes, Divison of Credit Practices (FTC) wrote in an opinion on June 9, 1998 :

'The first issue is whether your company is a "consumer reporting agency" (CRA) for purposes of
the FCRA. Section 603(f) of the FCRA defines a CRA as any organization which, for monetary fees, "assembles or evaluates" credit information or other information on consumers for the purpose of regularly furnishing "consumer reports" to third parties using any means or facility of interstate commerce. A "consumer report" is, in turn, defined in Section 603(d)(1) as a report containing information bearing on an individual's credit standing or his or her "character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living" that is used or expected to be used for the purpose of serving as a factor in establishing the consumer's eligibility for, among other things, employment, insurance, or credit.'

I've never seen a report from this company however, if they have to comply to to the FCRA then some points of interest:
1) Section 609 dictates for 2 years you have to record who's asked for the report. And disclose to the consumer the entire file to the consumer, including who has requested reports.
2) Section 607(b) requires a CRA to maintain "reasonable" procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy. Which means a report can't contain "Probally". Just the facts ma'am.
3) If the company happens to be an Employer then section 604(b) applies, which means they need written consent to conduct the investigation.

In the case of the Northwest Employee I'm sure they had a background check claus in the contract, however, if an employer terminated an employee because of the report and they did not have consent then there may be grounds for a lawsuit, and possible FTC fines.

Section 607(b) requires you to maintain "reasonable" procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy.

Tons of fun FTC stuff located at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/index.htm

Re:Anonymous Coward

Va/handover/slashdot would immediately comply with a court order. They are a publicly held company. To do otherwise would open them up to being held in contempt of court, or under the new DMCA laws, held equally responsible for any criminal or civil charges brought against the anonymous coward once identified.

That is why I never post anything objectionable, even using an alias pointing to a throwaway mail service. All along the way, websites are tracking everything they can about me, IP address, machine name, OS type, browser type, cookies. As a network guru, it is childs play to trace people on the net when they piss me off.

Truly anonymising TCP connections is very difficult, so I save that for the really important rants.

I'd like to see /. post a much clearer policy on how they purge web logs every day or so, and never make backups of the web log directories. This would make lawyers think twice about trying to subpoena the info if it is clearly stated it is deleted at the end of every day. As it stands, they are certainly collecting all the info they can on users, even anonCowards, to sell to their marketing masters.

the AC

This is why we need anti-SLAPP laws...

SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation - essentially corporations misusing the legal system by filing frivolous lawsuits against individual critics who don't have the means to defend themselves.

This is not so much an online issue - most SLAPPs come from land-use issues.

Some states have anti-SLAPP laws on their books, which make it much more costly for libel plaintiffs who loose in court. Others don't.

Insert U.S. political flamebait here:
This is the reason why people need to hold their nose and vote for Democrats. Republicans are so much in the pocket of large corporations that they try to elminate all methods of redress that individuals have.

Technological fixes (such as anonymity) can't address a legal issue, because the bad guys can use technology just as well as the good guys. You actually have to have the law on your side. That means using the political process, no matter how little respect you have for it.

Anonymous Coward

I just want to see some stupid ass notice stuff about his company on slashdot & pay that company to research Anonymous Coward.

it's their right.

it's any individual's/corporation's right to have access to the same information that any other member of the public has access to. If they wana spend 5000 dollars to know that I said something unfavorable about them, then it's their loss. It remains legal for me to say anything TRUE about another person or individual. Just keep negative comments about others clear, well supported, and legal. If you dont want a company to know what you think about them, dont write your opionions down in a public forum. If you do, you're asking for it.

Huh? What Good Is This?

And exactly what is the purpose of this information? Are they going to put a contract out on your head? Are they going to start harassing you? Black list you with employers? Threatening you? Subscribe you to dirty magazines and order pizzas to your house?

Damn. $5,000, eh? Someday, I'll be able to afford free speech.
---
seumas.com

It doesn't have to be a lie to be censored

The objective? "To stop the spread of incorrect information and to ensure that what has already spread is eliminated," eWatch states.

Wrong! I'd venture a guess that eWatch cares not of the validity of the information, but just that trademarks are being used. One of the greatest successes of the www._______sucks.com was a woman who took on a pest control company. Everything she said was true, but they still went after her for trademark infringement.

eWatch will simply automate the process of serving a DMCA order to the ISP of sites which do not agree with their customers.

Re:corporate terrorism

hmmm, if anyone wanted to DoS ewatch's network, it wouldn't bother me at all.

So to protect "Free Speach" you would not mind somebody shutting down a companies free speach?

Isn't this kind of like saying "We will not tolerate any show by Dr. Laura regardless of content because she is intolerant?".

A first ammendment that only protects the speech you agree with protects little.

(IMHO of course).

The evil makeup industry

Yes, those horrid rouge sites. We've all seen the garden variety office catfight, and the comments about weight. What is little known is that it's not because women behave this way, but because of the evil makeup industry and its rouge sites.

At the departmental level, a whispered "she gained 10 pounds" may be sufficient. At the executive level, it's different. One snide post about "her pasty complexion" sells plenty of rouge, but not before her career is rouged, err, ruined . . .

Hell, these aren't even *my* opinions, let alone my employer's . . .