PR Firm Targets Company-Bashing Web Sites

To advertisers and activists, the Internet is nirvana--unlimited space and the chance to get their message to the world. To the public relations firm of Middleberg & Associates, it’s a potential nightmare.

Before the World Wide Web, people unhappy with individual companies were reduced to convincing a news organization that they had a legitimate gripe or standing around handing out leaflets at corporate headquarters.

Now, all it takes is a weekend coding some HTML files and every complaint they’ve ever had is instantly available to millions.

“There was the ‘Kmart Sucks’ site, created by a disgruntled employee who was saying a lot of mean and nasty things about Kmart. Then there was the First Boston site, where a former employee published proprietary salary figures,” said Don Middleberg, whose firm protects its clients from attacks on the Internet.

“Companies spend small fortunes to create a brand image and something called goodwill,” he said. “These sites are actively destroying them.”

To counter the threat, Middleberg’s firm monitors the Web for “rogue” sites, then finds the people who created them and attempts to persuade them to go offline.

“If gentle persuasion doesn’t work,” he said from his New York office, “you need to bring in the lawyers.”

Over and above 1st Amendment concerns, threats of legal action are a long way from the golden vision of the Web as a democratic leveler rhapsodized about by Howard Rheingold, who has written several books about the ethos of the Internet.

“The Internet puts the masses back in mass media. It lets anyone publish their manifesto for all the world to read,” Rheingold said from his home near San Francisco.

Those days are over, countered Middleberg.

“Rheingold’s perceptions of where things are might have been true a few months ago,” he said. “But this is big business. Things have changed. Companies have spent millions of dollars on this. They’re going to fight to protect their sites.

“If the lawyers decide to go after someone and a company is willing to spend the dollars, they certainly can threaten and make life very difficult for people.”

It’s legally unclear, however, how much power companies actually have. Merely making derogatory comments is not illegal, said David Maher, co-chairman of the subcommittee on Internet Trademark Issues of the International Trademark Assn.

But legal or not, even the threat might be enough to shut down smaller sites, said Jonathan Hall, a spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace, which maintains an active Web site.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if people gave in if they got a call and were told to ‘remove this or there will be legal action,’ ” he said.