Three Interactions Online That Might Get You Sued

Your company’s presence online is an important element to building up its reputation. Without a plethora of online reviews, social media accounts, and mobile-friendly solutions, your company is pretty much invisible on the Internet.

But, as valuable as those are, they also can be risky. For instance, if a single angry response to a poor review goes viral, all of a sudden you are the laughingstock of the Web.

However, it isn’t just dents to your reputation you need to be concerned about. The Web currently provides you and your workers ample chances to make missteps which may lead to a lawsuit. Let us take a peek into some of those risky interactions and how you can avoid them.

A Late Night Defamatory Statement

Imagine that you had a poor experience with a vendor. The vendor was late with your delivery, you wound up losing money, and they didn’t do anything to make up for it. Nobody can blame you for saying they were crooks on Facebook.

Except that particular vendor does. They said your statement qualifies as defamation, then before you know it, you are defending yourself in a court of law.

Defamation is a false statement which may harm someone’s reputation.

Here’s the fix: Be cautious about what you state on the Internet. Individuals are watching; therefore, be certain every tweet and comment is professional.

A Borrowed Image that is on Your Blog

Copyright infringement involves using someone else’s copyrighted material without any of their permission. This seems easy enough to avoid, yet technology actually has made it challenging. As a matter of fact, you might’ve infringed on somebody’s copyright just by:

• Posting a video to a newsfeed.
• Getting a photo from a website for one of your blogs.
• Utilizing your smartphone to pipe background music in.

Maybe the most critical thing to know concerning copyrights is that a creator does not need to do anything in order to earn the status. As material is within a tangible form, that creator will hold the copyright.

Here’s the fix: Just use fair use images on your company’s blog. You may purchase rights to photos from a stock photograph website, or you may explore free fair use photograph websites such as Unsplash.

Tweet of a celeb using your products

Sharing a photo of a celebrity using one of your products might seem like advertising platinum – until the celebrity sues you for misappropriation. That is right: using somebody’s name, image, or likeness without permission may be considered an invasion of privacy- that’s an advertising no-no.

For example, take the lawsuit that Katherine Heigl brought about against pharmacy stores Duane Reade. Somebody from that drugstore’s staff tweeted a photograph of Heigl holding its bags and saying even she could not resist shopping there. The actress objected to the photo being utilized for marketing purposes without her permission then sued for six million dollars.

Here’s the fix: Do not use photographs of anyone without permission.

Remaining on top of your reputation online may take a lot of your attention, particularly if you are active on review websites. If you discover yourself spread too thin, employing a reputation management company might be the right way to go.