How Businesses Can Handle Attacks on Ripoff Report · 2015-09-24 · 3 How Businesses Can Handle Attacks on Ripoff Report Ripoff Report, which is branded as a destination for dissatisfied

How Businesses Can Handle Attacks on Ripoff Report

January 2015

2

Strategies for StoppingUnauthorized Internet Sales

The Online Reputation & Brand Protection Coalition’s mission is to help businesses protect their online reputations and brands online. The Coalition aims to fulfill its mission by educating businesses on how to protect and defend their reputations and brands online and advocating for increased protections and more effective remediation options for businesses.

Specifically, with respect to education, many businesses today are struggling because they do not understand how to best protect and defend themselves against online reputation and brand attacks, and there is presently a lack of quality educational materials and resources for businesses to turn to help understand and address these problems. To address the absence of these resources, the Coalition is committed to providing resources to businesses with the most up-to-date information designed to explain, prevent, and help businesses ultimately eradicate the problem of online reputation and brand attacks.

The Coalition provides its members with whitepapers created by the experts who regularly handle online reputation and brand attacks around the world addressing common reputation and brand problems which businesses are facing today.

Our Non-Profit Provides Educational Resources to Help Businesses Protect Their Brands and Reputations Online

The Online Reputation & Brand Protection Coalition is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping businesses protect their reputations and brands online. The Coalition is led by internet brand protection experts Whitney Gibson and Chris Anderson and includes a variety of multi-national advisors comprised of experts, business representatives, attorneys, educators, and other professionals.

To learn more about the Coalition, visit www.onlineprotectioncoalition.org

ABOUT THE ONLINE REPUTATION & BRAND PROTECTION COALITIONBOARD OF DIRECTORS

Whitney C. GibsonCo-Founder, Co-Chair of Board of [email protected]

Chris Anderson, PH.D.Co-Founder, Co-Chair of Board of [email protected]

Melissa AgnesMember of Board of Directorswww.agnesday.com

3


Ripoff Report, which is branded as a destination for dissatisfied consumers to share their experiences with others, is actually the home to many false, materially misleading, and defamatory posts.

One of the most common ways in which businesses are being attacked online is through posts on the complaint website Ripoff Report. Ripoff Report, which is branded as a destination for dissatisfied consumers to share their experiences with others, is actually the home to many false, materially misleading, and defamatory posts. Businesses and business owners are frequently the victims of damaging Ripoff Report posts, in which virtually anybody can post false and misleading allegations about them.

This whitepaper is intended to provide businesses the most up-to-date information regarding options for dealing with an attack on Ripoff Report. Part II of this whitepaper provides an overview of Ripoff Report including what makes many Ripoff Report posts so harmful. Part III, meanwhile, provides an extensive summary of several options that businesses can pursue to deal with damaging Ripoff Report posts.

I. Introduction

4


Ripoff Report essentially does nothing to ensure that what people post on the website is accurate.

According to the website itself, Ripoff Report is a “worldwide consumer reporting Web site and publication, by consumers, for consumers, to file and document complaints about companies or individuals.” As of December 1, 2014, the website had nearly 8.9 million visits and close to 1.9 million reports had been filed since its creation in 1998. The website receives between 150,000 and 250,000 visits per day, according to a 2013 Forbes article.

A website created to report scams and businesses “ripping off” customers, on its face, sounds well-intentioned. However, the website is rather infamous in that it has provided a platform for people to level attacks against businesses, which can cause (and has caused for many) tremendous problems. In essence, this website provides a means for anyone with a motive to damage or harm a business to do just that, by posting unfiltered and unverified allegations about a business.

For example, a competitor can pose as a legitimate customer and allege that another business failed to serve them, lied to them, or engaged in some other bad business practices; so can a former employee, an ex-spouse, a customer looking to extort a business, or really any person with the motive to do so. Ripoff Report essentially does nothing to ensure that what people post on the website is accurate. The website states they encourage and require posters to publish only truthful information, and they prohibit defamatory posts, yet “Ripoff Report does not guarantee that all reports are authentic or accurate.”

Under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), a law intended to protect websites from endless litigation for user-generated content, Ripoff Report generally cannot be held liable for what others post on the website. As such, the accuracy of reports are not checked and the posters’ identities are not verified, allowing people to conceal their identities. Many bad actors will take steps to mask their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and prevent others from tracing posts back to their email addresses, thus making it possible to damage a business or professional on Ripoff Report with no one suffering consequences besides the subjects of the posts themselves.

What makes Ripoff Report posts even more harmful is that they tend to rank highly in search engines. There are dozens of consumer complaint websites, but what is most damaging are the websites and related posts that can appear among the top results if not the very top result when searching the business on Google.

II. Ripoff Report Basics

5


In years past, many online reputation management (ORM) companies could successfully “move” or “bury” these harmful posts down search results by helping generate and placing more positive content about the business online.

1 As of the date of the publication of this whitepaper.

According to Open Site Explorer, Ripoff Report is rated 82 (out of 100) – considered rather high – for its domain authority, which is a measurement predicting the “root domain’s ranking potential in the search engines based on an algorithmic combination of all link metrics.” Thus, for most businesses that are the subjects of Ripoff Report posts, the URLs to the relevant Ripoff Report postings will appear on the first page of the search engines. On the front page of the website, Ripoff Report even communicates to users: “Your Ripoff Report will be discovered by millions of consumers! Search engines will automatically discover most reports, meaning that within just a few days or weeks, your report may be found on search engines when consumers search, using key words relating to your Ripoff Report.”

Considering how highly Ripoff Report posts tend to rank, coupled with the fact that most of their headlines/titles are filled with negative and sometimes hyperbolic language such as “SCAM!” or “FRAUDS!”, they tend to stick out like sore thumbs. If a prospective customer or client is searching a business online and stumbles across search results falsely suggesting it is a “SCAM!” or that the company (again, falsely) is involved in some fraudulent practices, that customer is very likely to either: 1) click on the Ripoff Report post and read the false allegations, or 2) simply read the headline/title, immediately form a negative opinion, and never think twice about doing business with the company.

In years past, many online reputation management (ORM) companies could successfully “move” or “bury” these harmful posts down search results by helping generate and placing more positive content about the business online. However, given current search engine algorithms, it is much more difficult for businesses to supplant these posts. In fact, a Google search of Reputation.com, arguably the biggest ORM name out there, reveals a Ripoff Report posting about the ORM company right on its first search results page.1

6


According to the website’s terms of services, posts become part of Ripoff Report’s “permanent record” and will not be removed.

To cap it all off, Ripoff Report is notorious for its strong policy of refusing to remove any postings. According to the website’s terms of services, posts become part of Ripoff Report’s “permanent record” and will not be removed. Even if an author or poster of a false Ripoff Report post admits it was a mistake or that it was completely false, and he or she would otherwise agree to remove the post, by submitting the Report, the damage has been done. Similarly, Ripoff Report will not remove a business’s name from the website, even if that business obtains a court order against the poster that the information is defamatory.

7


To use an analogy to illustrate this, imagine that you are going to purchase apples at a farmer’s market and you see an apple with a big brown spot accompanied by a note saying that, despite the brown spots, the apples are not actually bad.

Ripoff Report purports to offer a number of avenues for businesses to pursue when the subject of harmful attacks on the website. Below is an overview and our analysis of each.

A. Rebuttal

One simple option Ripoff Report offers is the ability to file a “rebuttal,” or a reply in the comments section of the original post, where a business owner or representative can state his or her position (filed rebuttals must be approved by Ripoff Report administrators before they are actually posted below the original report). While a rebuttal can help “set the record straight,” it does little to mitigate the damage caused on this high-ranking website. Even if the company posts a rebuttal and counters the post with the real facts, any consumer reading the original post will not want to risk that the original content was true. To use an analogy to illustrate this, imagine that you are going to purchase apples at a farmer’s market and you see an apple with a big brown spot accompanied by a note saying that, despite the brown spots, the apples are not actually bad. Meanwhile, there is another apple seller several feet away, and his or her apples are pristine-looking with no spots. From which seller are you going to buy the apples? If there are any red flags, such as a negative Ripoff Report post, consumers will not want to take a chance that the bad review might be true. Needless to say, false Ripoff Reports are impacting consumer purchasing decisions and, in turn, the well-being of many businesses.

Not only is a rebuttal ineffective for the reasons stated above, but also they do not cause high-ranking harmful Ripoff Report posts to disappear from the top of search engines. In fact, some believe rebuttals actually can cause a Ripoff Report post to rank higher in search rankings, which is likely to lead to even greater visibility depending on where it originally ranked. While there may be some perceived value in trying to set the record straight, if a business does choose to file a rebuttal, we recommend avoiding keywords that can be detected by search engines (e.g. repeating the name of the business).

B. Ripoff Report VIP Arbitration Program

Ripoff Report also offers a “VIP Arbitration Program,” through which businesses can submit written statements identifying specific false statements in a report and/or explaining that a report was posted by someone claiming to be a customer (e.g. a competitor). The author of the post is given an opportunity to respond, and then a privately contracted arbitrator reviews both statements and issues a decision. If

III. How to Respond to a Ripoff Report Attack

8


The business will still be listed on the website, potentially suffering reputational harm by association with Ripoff Report.

2 When the business name is searched and the business name appears next to the word “ripoff,” this can instantly turn prospective customers away. In our experience, most potential customers of the business will stop researching the business and move on to another company offering a similar product or service.

he or she finds any statements to be false, Ripoff Report will redact them from the original report. The notice of the arbitration decision will be included before the original text, but the listing about the business will not be removed altogether.

Based on our experience, the arbitration program is rarely worth the $2,000 filing cost. The business will still be listed on the website, potentially suffering reputational harm by association with Ripoff Report.2 Further, the business name will remain in the Ripoff Report URL. If the redaction of certain false statements is worth a couple thousand dollars to a business, then that may be an adequate solution for them. However, that business will still be listed on Ripoff Report.

C. Corporate Advocacy Program (CAP)

Ripoff Report offers the “CAP” program, which purports to be a “customer service remediator, PR firm & ad agency all in one.” For members of this program, Ripoff Report claims it will “verify[] unfair, unjust, unbalanced or phony filings; “[d]etermine the truthfulness of the complaints as best as we can”; uncover “phony reports filed by competitors, malicious individuals and/or disgruntled employees”; and other services such as emailing posters notifying them the business wants to negotiate with them.

The end result of this program is no different than the VIP Arbitration Program: Ripoff Report will not remove from the website the businesses subject of reports, rather Ripoff Report will only remove certain statements. Again, this also does not remove the listing from the search engines. In one of the nine different web pages about the CAP program on Ripoff Report, it shows how a Ripoff Report posting would look after going through the CAP program. The listings in the example – second and third on the business’s first Google search page – clearly do not erase the stigma often brought by appearing on Ripoff Report. As discussed in the “Comprehensive Guide to Protecting & Defending Against Online Reputation Attacks” whitepaper, one of the best things a company can do to combat negative online reviews is to build positive web assets to take control of its search engine results, to the extent possible. Due to the search engine strength or domain authority of Ripoff Report, once a harmful post goes up on the website, that business will have trouble getting enough content to rank higher than the Ripoff Report post. Thus, the CAP program does little to combat the effects of a business being on Ripoff Report in the first place, and the resulting high-ranking search result.

D. Ripoff Report Verified

Just like CAP, Ripoff Report Verified is another paid business membership program. In other words, Ripoff Report has established a forum through which

9


Given Ripoff Report’s refusal to remove reports from its website and the CDA’s allowance of this policy, this is an option businesses should consider if they have the budget and if a false Ripoff Report would cause them substantial damage.

businesses can be irreparably harmed, its administrators are unwilling to remove damaging posts, and then Ripoff Report has created these programs in which it offers some remedial services in exchange for a fee. On the signup page for this program, Ripoff Report acknowledges reputations are being harmed online by defamatory posts. Further, an informational YouTube video produced by the company confirms that Ripoff Report does not remove posts, and that these tend to rank highly in search.

Ripoff Report Verified is actually set up for businesses that have not yet received complaints on the website. Through this program, a complaint filed with Ripoff Report is sent to the business, which is given 14 days to resolve the complaint before the report goes up on the website (if resolved, it is never posted). Given Ripoff Report’s refusal to remove reports from its website and the CDA’s allowance of this policy, this is an option businesses should consider if they have the budget and if a false Ripoff Report would cause them substantial damage. The option to resolve an issue up front does offer an opportunity to keep the report from ever being published on Ripoff Report. However, the negotiations may be difficult, as a business may need to make substantial concessions to the customer (or supposed “customer”), knowing that failure to reach a resolution will lead to the report appearing on Ripoff Report and likely the first page of Google.

Even if a report never goes up on Ripoff Report, the business will be listed in the Ripoff Report Verified business directory; again, it would still be attached to the stigma-carrying Ripoff Report name. As seen in the screenshot below, a “verified” member is still likely to have Ripoff Report appear in its search results, and a potential customer may be turned off simply by seeing “Ripoff Report” show up in the search results. Businesses considering this program should look through the business directory of the members of the Ripoff Report Verified program, search for those businesses on Google, see if they like how those businesses appear in the search results, and then decide if they want Ripoff Report to appear on their own search results.

While we do not approve of the current Ripoff Report policy of refusing to remove harmful reports, given that this is its policy, Ripoff Report Verified is something a business should at least consider to prevent being attacked on this complaint website.

10


The search engines do not require a court order directed against the search engine itself (which would not be possibly anyway due to the CDA).

3 According to October 2014 data from comScore, 96.8% of the U.S. core search market is held by Google (67.0%), Microsoft sites (19.5%), and Yahoo! sites (10.3%).

4 The definition of libel or slander varies by jurisdiction, but typically the alleged defamed party must show: 1) the defendant published a statement, communicated to at least one other person; 2) the statement is about the plaintiff; 3) the statement harmed the plaintiff’s reputation; 4) the statement was published with some level of fault (actual malice or negligence); and 5) the statement was not privileged.

5 Most statutes of limitations are one or two years, but a handful of states have three-year statutes of limitations.

E. Legal Options

1. De-Indexing from Search

Another method used to mitigate the effects of a Ripoff Report post is to obtain a court order that can be used to get the post de-indexed (or removed) from search engines such as Google, the Microsoft-operated Bing, and Yahoo!3 There are attorneys that regularly help businesses and individuals in removing internet defamation from Ripoff Report by obtaining court orders against defamers.

While not legally compelled to do so, if a business provides a search engine with a court order against the author of the harmful statements (which states that the material posted has been adjudged defamatory), then the search engines will likely de-index, or remove, the URLs containing the defamatory material. The search engines do not require a court order directed against the search engine itself (which would not be possibly anyway due to the CDA). For most businesses, this is nearly as good as removing the Ripoff Report post entirely from the website, as it will not come up in search results and most consumers do not go directly to Ripoff Report to search for businesses.

The key, therefore, is getting the court order. To obtain this, the post must be defamatory.4 Businesses must be aware that it is much easier to obtain a court order if a complaint (lawsuit) has been filed within the statute of limitations, which can range from one-to-three years depending on the state.5 There are some jurisdictions in which arguments can be made to “extend” the statute of limitations, although this is something about which businesses should consult with an attorney.

The ease with which a business can obtain a court order generally depends on a number of factors, and we encourage business owners or representatives to consult with an attorney. If a court order can be obtained, this is often the most effective approach for removing Ripoff Report posts from the view of potential customers and other stakeholders.

2. Trademark Considerations

Another option that might be available for a business is to send a letter to Ripoff Report explaining how a post on the website violates its trademarks. If a business can claim that the posting violates its trademark, it may be able to get Ripoff Report

11


Unfortunately, based on our experience, ORM techniques can be tricky, especially with Ripoff Report posts.

6 Such as generating lots of negative links to the harmful Ripoff Report post in hopes of Google penalizing the webpage and moving the URL down the search results or de-indexing it altogether.

to remove it. The CDA does not protect websites against trademark claims anyway, but it also runs counter to Ripoff Report’s terms of service to violate another’s intellectual property rights. Further, under trademark law, if a business notifies a website that someone has violated its trademarks and that website does not fix it, the business will have a potential claim against the website for contributory trademark infringement. Ultimately, we encourage businesses to consult with an attorney if it is determined that they may have trademark claims.

F. ORM Techniques

If a business cannot get a Ripoff Report post de-indexed with a court order, then the remaining solution is trying to contain the post with ORM search engine optimization techniques. Unfortunately, based on our experience, ORM techniques can be tricky, especially with Ripoff Report posts. Aside from the fact that search engines have frequently changing algorithms often making it difficult to apply these techniques, ORM techniques are not permanent solutions. One business may be able to have a Ripoff Report pushed down in search results for a certain period of time, but if the algorithms change, a Ripoff Report post can return to page one (and often high up on the page) – not to mention that existing algorithms can make it difficult to apply these techniques anyway. Further, if a business uses these techniques and they ultimately do not prove to be effective, and then if the statute of limitations has already run, it is unlikely that the business will be able to obtain a court order.

Businesses must be wary of any company that tries to pitch potentially illegal solutions, such as hacking into websites, inserting certain code, or using black hat techniques.6 These techniques are not effective, but some people out there may be offering such “solutions” for money.

We have frequently worked with clients who have unsuccessfully tried using ORM companies to push down Ripoff Report posts. By no means does the Online Protection Coalition think these techniques are never viable options, especially if a business has the appropriate budget; the reality, however, is that Ripoff Report has such search engine strength that it is difficult to supplant Ripoff Report posts from the top results on Google and other search engines. This being said, the Online Protection Coalition asks any ORM company or other service providers that have had success with pushing down or burying Ripoff Report posts to provide examples of their success, we will vet them, and then we will share those options and costs with our members.

12


While we often recommend obtaining a court order and presenting it to the search engines for removal of the URLs, businesses may wish to consider all of the options above.

In short, due to the structure and policies of Ripoff Report, it is quite difficult for businesses to handle false and damaging posts on the website. While we often recommend obtaining a court order and presenting it to the search engines for removal of the URLs, businesses may wish to consider all of the options above. Ripoff Report posts affect businesses differently, and each harmed business will vary in terms of the amount of resources it can dedicate to handling a damaging post. The important thing is being proactive and not ignoring a harmful Ripoff Report post, as few companies can afford doing nothing at all (and the longer one waits to act, the more limited options will become).

IV. Conclusion

www.onlineprotectioncoalition.org

How Businesses Can Handle Attacks on Ripoff Report · 2015-09-24 · 3 How Businesses Can Handle Attacks on Ripoff Report Ripoff Report, which is branded as a destination for dissatisfied

Documents