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..."

Comments

Plenty of ways to quash dissent...

[isaac]

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

[Kagato]

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

[anticypher]

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