Social networks reputation protection. We protect the business reputation of the company. Evidence and proof

Do not think that only unscrupulous companies that are engaged in deceiving customers can earn a bad name. You may not be doing anything wrong, but even then, your business reputation can be damaged due to third-party factors, such as:

dissatisfied customers who did not like something, regardless of whether their claim was justified;
laid-off workers who want to take revenge on the company, even if the dismissal was due to their own fault;
competitors ordering negative reviews and “exposing” articles.

Attacks by Internet trolls are also possible, which sometimes spread negativity about people, companies and phenomena solely for fun. Undermine business reputation maybe even an awkward video from a corporate party, unsuccessfully posted on the Web, or a post in social network... In addition, it is important to understand: dissatisfied customer or an employee will write a review about the company with a much higher probability than satisfied - this is a feature of human thinking. To avoid problems arising from stupid misunderstandings or intrigues of intruders, you need to take care of protecting your reputation in a timely manner. And the most important thing here is well-built communications.

How to protect your online reputation

When working with negativity, it is important to understand that the further business reputation of the company depends on your reaction. Both negative feedback and the reaction to it will be visible not only to you, but also potential clients coming across a discussion on the web. Successful online reputation protection is based on the following rules:

you need to react to negativity quickly. An untimely response will look not only suspicious, but also stupid and will only turn more customers away from you;
you need to calmly and politely talk to people who spread negative information, even if they are rude or use obscene language. Overly emotional responses will quickly provoke an escalation of the conflict and only worsen the situation;
it is worth answering truthfully. If a person talks about a situation that really took place, or points out a real flaw in the company's work, you should not pretend that this did not happen. Much more the right way out will admit the mistake and promise to sort it out soon.

A major challenge that companies face when protecting their online business reputation is the diversity of communications. If the business is small, it is almost impossible to track all mentions of the company on the Web and respond to them in a timely manner on your own. Of course, large firms can afford this, but for those who do not have such an opportunity, professionals offer services to protect their business name. Online reputation protection specialists work according to the following principles:

help to track information related to the activities of the company;
bring slanderers, custom reviews and network trolls to the surface;
help to settle real conflict situations;
promote up-to-date information about the company and attract satisfied customers.

With their help, the protection of business reputation on the Internet becomes much easier.

What not to do

Some companies, faced with negativity, instead of trying to solve the problem, begin to fence themselves off from it, pretending that negative reviews do not exist, or explaining all conflicts exclusively by black PR. This behavior is detrimental to the business reputation: users, seeing that the company is disowning any negativity, begin to consider it suspicious and form a negative opinion about it. If you are faced with negativity, in no case should you do the following things:

ignore negative reviews and do not react to them at all - the problem, if you do not pay attention to it, will not disappear;
be rude and react aggressively - sometimes angry customers and employees can really behave defiantly, but you should not further undermine your business reputation with rudeness;
remove negative reviews - this behavior will make your customers think that you are an unreliable company that does not want to be held responsible for your actions;
make excuses - instead of promising to correct mistakes or offering compensation, you should not try to absolve yourself of responsibility and blame outside factors.

If you do not make mistakes, but begin to confidently and competently handle the incoming negative, your business reputation will creep up, and your profits will increase. It's enough to follow simple tips to communicate with customers and try to improve the quality of service.

We live in the 21st century, and convince someone of the benefits information technologies not necessary. The President of the country, the Government are carrying out systematic work, as a result of which the Internet has come to every school, to a resident of the most remote corner of our country. Today, the commercialization of the Internet can be spoken of as an accomplished event. Indeed, almost any company has its own website on the Global Network. And many companies not only follow the trends of the times, but also try to really use it in their business. Yes and about ecommerce you don't have to say anything. There are more than enough online stores selling anything on the Web.

A huge number of publicly available social networks, various forums, chats in which our population of various ages and social groups communicate.

However, along with the benefits, the Internet also brought the opportunity spread negative information about a person... Together with business, all its attributes, including unfair competition, came to the virtual space.

Often, political strategists use the worldwide network for black PR!

It seems to Ham that he is anonymous on the Internet, and under a virtual mask you can write anything you want. You can fearlessly offend or slander a person and you do not need to be afraid that someone will find out the name of the offender or in any way force him to answer for his words.

Unfortunately, to a large extent, this opinion is justified. Few people dare to go to court and defend themselves, their reputation and their dignity. In Russia, there are very few precedents for resolving insult disputes on the Internet. Someone has no money, someone is lazy, someone is afraid to be branded as a lawsuit. Many judges, prosecutors, lawyers and other lawyers are afraid to get involved in such cases. And slander and insults are getting more and more every day.

What to do, how to protect yourself from virtual arbitrariness?

So, let's look at what are the levers of influence on boors and "grief of businessmen", and how you can protect yourself from attacks on the Internet?

Firstly, every Internet user, of course, needs to know their rights, reflected in legislative acts. Russian Federation.

Constitution of the Russian Federation, article 21:

The dignity of the individual is protected by the state. Nothing can be the basis for belittling it.

Article 23:

Everyone has the right to inviolability of private life, personal and family secrets, protection of his honor and good name.

Article 34:

Economic activity aimed at monopolization and unfair competition is not allowed.

Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, article 129:

Slander, that is, the dissemination of knowingly false information that discredits the honor and dignity of another person or undermines his reputation.

Article 130:

Insult, that is, humiliation of the honor and dignity of another person, expressed in an indecent form.

Civil Code of the Russian Federation, article 152:

A citizen has the right to demand in court a refutation of information discrediting his honor, dignity or business reputation, unless the person who disseminated such information proves that it is true.
The rules of this article on the protection of the business reputation of a citizen are accordingly applied to the protection of the business reputation of a legal entity.

Secondly, if there is an incident, you can follow the path civil protection, and in the direction prosecution of the perpetrator... Also, the law does not exclude the simultaneous use of these two paths.

Thus, the Law allows both a citizen and a legal entity to be protected from all the phenomena discussed above. However, not everything is as simple as we would like.

To file a statement of claim with an arbitration court or a court of general jurisdiction, you need to know and indicate the respondent. Moreover, in accordance with paragraph 1, Art. 1064 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: Damage caused to the person or property of a citizen, as well as damage caused to the property of a legal entity, is subject to compensation in full by the person who caused the damage.

A problem arises - to protect their rights in court it is necessary to establish and identify the villain .

Let's say a citizen decided to apply for protection in the direction of criminal prosecution. He comes to the police, he is answered - Articles 129 and 130 are private prosecution cases, go to court. Of those who reach the magistrate and receive a decision to initiate a criminal case on the fact against unidentified persons, not many will find the strength to wait for the police to identify the attacker. Most likely, in the depths of some police department, the criminal case will be terminated for failure to identify the person subject to criminal prosecution.

The result is the same - the villain is not identified and there is no one to ask, according to the law!

Dead end? No! In this situation, if it damages the business, the company's reputation or image business person it is necessary to contact specialists. How can they help you, how will they try to be useful to you? It is known that any event leaves traces in the surrounding world. Good professional always knows where and how to find these tracks.

Can we help you?

Association of security structures "Oskord" is, first of all, a team of high professionals. Among us there are both competent lawyers and specialists in the field of information security. At the pre-trial stage, we will help prepare the relevant documents. Our consultations in each specific situation will help you with obtaining evidence. Your copyright, brand, good name today can be protected from any encroachment.

More detailed information about the work of the information security service you can find in the section "information services", or by calling in Moscow.

What actions need to be taken to protect your rights? Is it possible to oblige the Instagram administration to delete this post? The name of the user, the name of his account are known, the user lives in another region.
Sergey

Hello. You can contact the administration in writing, if they refuse, then only through the court.

The court at the location of the defendant, district. Art. 152.

Article 152. Protection of honor, dignity and business reputation

1. A citizen has the right to demand in court the refutation of information discrediting his honor, dignity or business reputation. , if the person who disseminated such information does not prove that they correspond to reality. The refutation must be done in the same way that information about the citizen was disseminated, or in another similar way.
On demand stakeholders protection of honor, dignity and business reputation of a citizen is allowed even after his death.

2. Information discrediting the honor, dignity or business reputation of a citizen and disseminated in the media mass media, must be refuted in the same media. A citizen in respect of whom the specified information has been disseminated in the media has the right to demand, along with a refutation, the publication of his answer in the same media

3. If information defaming the honor, dignity or business reputation of a citizen is contained in a document emanating from the organization, such a document must be replaced or revoked.

4. In cases where information discrediting the honor, dignity or business reputation of a citizen has become widely known and in this regard, the refutation cannot be brought to the general knowledge, the citizen has the right to demand the removal of the relevant information, as well as suppression or prohibition of the further dissemination of this information by means of seizure and destruction, without any compensation, of copies of material carriers containing the specified information made for the purpose of putting into civil circulation, if the removal of the relevant information is impossible without the destruction of such copies of material carriers.

5. If information discrediting the honor, dignity or business reputation of a citizen turned out to be available on the Internet after their dissemination, the citizen has the right to demand the removal of the relevant information, as well as the refutation of this information in a way that ensures that the refutation is communicated to Internet users.

6. The procedure for refuting information discrediting the honor, dignity or business reputation of a citizen, in other cases, except for those specified in paragraphs 2-5 of this article, shall be established by the court.

7. Application of measures of responsibility to the violator for non-execution of the court decision does not relieve him of the obligation to perform the action provided for by the court decision.

8. If it is impossible to establish the person who disseminated information discrediting the honor, dignity or business reputation of a citizen, the citizen in respect of whom such information is disseminated has the right to apply to the court with a statement declaring the disseminated information untrue.

9. A citizen in respect of whom information has been disseminated that discredits his honor, dignity or business reputation, along with the refutation of such information or the publication of his answer, has the right to demand compensation for losses and compensation for moral damage, caused by the dissemination of such information.

Please note - you will have to prove all this yourself. Since this is posted on the network, then before filing a claim, be sure to print all these screenshots, correspondence, etc. and assure them by a notary - then they will be evidence in court.

To collect evidence, in principle, you can still write a statement to the police, but it is difficult to achieve checks on the facts of libel, all the same, these are cases of private prosecution as far as I remember.

Speaking about negative reviews on the Internet, you need to determine what is meant by this wording from the point of view of law. In the resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 3 dated February 24, 2005, in clause 7, it is clarified that the dissemination of information discrediting business reputation should be understood, in particular, information containing allegations of a violation by a legal entity of current legislation, committing an dishonest act , wrong, unethical behavior, bad faith in the implementation of entrepreneurial activity, violation business ethics or business customs.

Determining the correct respondent

To determine the forms and methods of protection, it is necessary to identify several essential conditions that will help to establish the correct respondent.

As a rule, a company whose business reputation is offended cannot reliably identify the author of a review. And even if it is known, but there is no documentary evidence, the court will refuse to satisfy the requirements.

In clause 5 of the said Resolution, the defendants in claims for the protection of business reputation are the authors of false and degrading information, as well as the persons who disseminated this information.

Consequently, the proper respondent is not only the author, but also the site on which such a review was left. But it is possible that the domain, as well as the server on which the site is located, is located outside the Russian Federation.

In this case, the appropriate respondent will be the Office federal service on supervision in the field of communications, information technology and mass communications.

Which court to file an application for the protection of business reputation?

The Arbitration Procedural Code determines that only arbitration courts are authorized to consider cases on the protection of reputation, which takes place in the field of business and other economic activity.

Moreover, such cases are considered by an arbitration court, regardless of whether the parties to the dispute are citizens ( individuals), individual entrepreneurs or by legal entities or other organizations.

However, if the dispute does not concern entrepreneurial and other economic activities, it is within the competence of a court of general jurisdiction.

Evidence for posting negative reviews

In courts of general jurisdiction (regional, world, city, etc.) and in the Arbitration Courts (when the plaintiff and the defendant are legal entities or individual entrepreneurs) the rules apply: each party is obliged to prove what it refers to. Consequently, if you indicate the address of the revocation and a printout from the site, then in most cases the judge will refuse the plaintiff to attach the documents, since the judge will not go to the site to check the accuracy of the statements.

It is more correct to contact a notary to fix a negative review. This document is called the "Evidence Inspection Protocol". The notary visits the site himself and records this in the form of descriptive text and screenshots. It should be borne in mind that not every notary does this. Service cost - from 6,000 rubles.

The applicant is not obliged to prove the fact that the information is true. According to paragraph 1 of Art. 152 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the responsibility to prove the validity of the disseminated information lies with the defendant. The plaintiff is obliged to prove the fact of dissemination of information by the person against whom the claim is brought, as well as the defamatory nature of this information.

YouTube video: evidence of negative information

With video, things are more complicated. Together with the claim, you must provide a disk on which the video is saved. However, the defendant can argue that the plaintiff has not proven that it was posted on YouTube.

For example, the Arbitration Court Krasnodar Territory in his decision of 12 February 2016 in case No. А33-15606 / 2015, he tried to make an official request:

“At the same time, during the trial, the defendant's representative also stated the argument that the plaintiff did not prove the fact of posting the disputed videos on the Internet on the YouTube website. limited liability"Google" court requested information about who posted the above videos, who owned the account [...] in the period from 05/01/2015 to 08/31/2015.

According to the letter of the limited liability company "Google" dated 01/29/2016, this organization does not administer the YouTube service and does not have the technical ability to provide the requested information. The YouTube service is provided by the American company YouTube LLC. All information relating to the YouTube service is collected and processed in the United States by YouTube LLC. "

However, the plaintiff in this case was a little lucky, since the court offered the defendant to provide an agreement with the provider in order to make him a request, but he did not provide such documents, and the judge took the side of the applicant, obliged the defendant to issue a refutation, but refused to collect 300 thousand rubles of moral and reputational harm, since the negative consequences have not been proven.

Subjective opinion and unreliable review - what's the difference?

The widespread belief is wrong that the person who wrote the review can interpret it as a subjective opinion. In fact, this is not the case. At the same time, the courts are also mistaken, but there are also appellate and cassation instances.

In fact, if the information posted on the site is stated in an affirmative form, then they cannot be considered as a subjective opinion, since the distributor reported them as facts that took place in reality. Accordingly, information can convince an unlimited number of people of something, and a negative opinion is formed from potential partners, clients and customers of the applicant.

With regard to entrepreneurial activity, the criterion of defamatory may include not only information about the obviously immoral and unethical behavior of a person, but also those that, although they do not testify to such behavior, nevertheless diminish the actual qualities (dignity) of a particular subject acting in business, they clearly underestimate the achieved (including economic) indicators, question its competitiveness and market viability, which can negatively affect business relations with counterparties, reduce the demand for manufactured goods, that is, entail an unfavorable economic result. However, there are exceptions ... So, in 2013, the service for booking air tickets OneTwoTrip filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, where the defendant was the social network Vkontakte (case No. A56-61842 / 2013). The applicant asked to remove the group with negative reviews on the site, considering them unreliable and defaming the business reputation.

But the court did not agree with the plaintiff, recognized the information as the subjective opinion of the authors, in addition, in its decision of February 12, 2014, indicated that the plaintiff did not confirm that the reviews in the group relate specifically to this company.

Perhaps the appellate instance would have thought otherwise, but the complaint was filed in violation of the requirements and was returned without consideration.

Important! What are the requirements for the statement of claim?

In the requesting part, it is imperative to demand the refutation of the information in the same way in which the inaccurate review was made. That is, if it was in a social network group with a fixation in the top line, then the refutation should be performed in the same way. In this case, it is advisable to indicate in the court decision the period within which the message should not be deleted.

As for moral and reputational damage, most often the courts refuse to satisfy such requirements or significantly reduce them due to the lack of evidence that confirms or determines the exact amount indicated in the claim.

By general rule A post posted on a social network is not subject to judicial protection in disputes on the protection of business reputation, since it is a subjective judgment of a person (approved by the Presidium of the RF Armed Forces on March 16, 2016; hereinafter - Review of March 16, 2016). But there are exceptions to this rule.

However, the court of first instance dismissed the claim (decision Arbitration court Republic of Bashkortostan dated November 30, 2015 in case No. A07-12906 / 2015). The higher courts left this act unchanged (,). The publication of information on a social network, in the opinion of the judges, cannot be recognized as defaming the business reputation, since it represents the judgments and subjective opinions expressed by the defendant.

Disagreeing with this position, the company "P" applied to Supreme Court Of the Russian Federation with a complaint in which she asked to cancel the acts adopted by the lower courts ().

The court recalled that a legal entity has the right to demand a refutation of information discrediting its business reputation, if the person who disseminated such information does not prove that they correspond to reality (,).

In this case, the circumstances that are relevant when considering such cases are:

the fact that the defendant has disseminated information about the plaintiff;
defamatory nature of this information;
inconsistency of their reality (clause 7 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the RF Armed Forces of February 24, 2005 No. 3 "").

If at least one of these circumstances is missing, the claim cannot be satisfied.

The RF Armed Forces also stressed that the dissemination of information discrediting the business reputation legal entities, is including the dissemination of information on the Internet.

S. did not deny the fact of dissemination of the disputed information. But at the same time, she believed that this information was not defamatory, since it was an expression of her subjective opinion. The lower courts agreed with this

But the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation noted that when considering cases on the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation, one should distinguish between statements of facts, the validity of which can be verified, and value judgments, opinions and beliefs that are not subject to judicial protection, since they cannot be check for validity ().

The information disputed by P is information about the organization's illegal and unfair behavior and is formulated in the form of statements. The information presented by S. does not indicate that the facts described are in the nature of an assumption and that she personally assesses the plaintiff's behavior in this way. The chosen style of presenting information, the Court emphasized, indicates the presence of the described facts in reality (the fact of understating the cost of work, the fact of establishing a dumping price, the fact of incompetence of the compilers of the tender documentation, facts of corruption and other illegal behavior, fraud). All these facts can be verified. Therefore, this information is not subjective.

This is confirmed by the position of the defendant himself, who insisted on the correspondence of his statements to reality.

In addition, even if the information is presented as the subjective opinion of the author, it can be the basis for (). This is possible in the event that such information indicates the unlawful nature of the subject's behavior and is offensive in nature.

With this in mind, the RF Armed Forces canceled the acts of the lower courts and sent the case for a new trial.