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Dotcom Confidential
by Kim Zetter
Jun 13 2008
Jun 13 2008
Online, where information roams free, companies have fought a tough battle to keep their trade secrets from appearing on leak sites. Guess who's winning.
Before the arrival of broadband and blogging software, companies had only to worry about their dirty laundry being aired by pesky reporters or the occasional lawsuit.
The internet, of course, has changed all that. From anonymous whistle-blowers who post secret documents online to fan sites that spill trade secrets, websites and their owners can be a major thorn in the side of corporations that find comfort behind a veil of secrecy (here are our picks for the top anti-corporate sites).
“It’s a risky new world for corporations,” says Ronald Alsop, author of The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation: Creating, Protecting, and Repairing Your Most Valuable Asset. “Every company I speak with is very aware that this is a growing issue and that there are all these new sites and new ways to potentially become under attack.”
Employees with blogs are one big concern. An anonymous Microsoft insider named “Mini-Microsoft” has been blogging internal worker complaints about the company since 2004 and has apparently grabbed Microsoft’s ear. When the company changed some of its benefits and review policies in 2006, some credited the blog with precipitating the moves.
A bigger threat, however, may be watchdog sites such as Wikileaks and Wal-Mart Watch that actively solicit insiders to disclose corporate secrets and wrongdoings. Wikileaks, which has a broad mandate, recently published documents from a whistle-blower alleging that the Cayman Islands branch of Swiss bank Julius Baer helps wealthy customers launder money and hide assets. And Wal-Mart Watch has twice published embarrassing internal correspondence from its executives, forcing the huge retailer to publicly respond.
Increasingly, companies are turning to the law to combat these sites, but it’s not always that successful. Apple sued and reached a settlement that shuttered Think Secret, a fan site that beat the company a number of times at announcing its new products. But when Julius Baer took legal action to get whistle-blower documents removed from the Wikileaks site, a public backlash gave the documents more attention than they would have otherwise received and painted Julius Baer as an enemy of free speech.
RELATED: Top 7 Anti-Corporate Websites
The internet, of course, has changed all that. From anonymous whistle-blowers who post secret documents online to fan sites that spill trade secrets, websites and their owners can be a major thorn in the side of corporations that find comfort behind a veil of secrecy (here are our picks for the top anti-corporate sites).
“It’s a risky new world for corporations,” says Ronald Alsop, author of The 18 Immutable Laws of Corporate Reputation: Creating, Protecting, and Repairing Your Most Valuable Asset. “Every company I speak with is very aware that this is a growing issue and that there are all these new sites and new ways to potentially become under attack.”
Employees with blogs are one big concern. An anonymous Microsoft insider named “Mini-Microsoft” has been blogging internal worker complaints about the company since 2004 and has apparently grabbed Microsoft’s ear. When the company changed some of its benefits and review policies in 2006, some credited the blog with precipitating the moves.
A bigger threat, however, may be watchdog sites such as Wikileaks and Wal-Mart Watch that actively solicit insiders to disclose corporate secrets and wrongdoings. Wikileaks, which has a broad mandate, recently published documents from a whistle-blower alleging that the Cayman Islands branch of Swiss bank Julius Baer helps wealthy customers launder money and hide assets. And Wal-Mart Watch has twice published embarrassing internal correspondence from its executives, forcing the huge retailer to publicly respond.
Increasingly, companies are turning to the law to combat these sites, but it’s not always that successful. Apple sued and reached a settlement that shuttered Think Secret, a fan site that beat the company a number of times at announcing its new products. But when Julius Baer took legal action to get whistle-blower documents removed from the Wikileaks site, a public backlash gave the documents more attention than they would have otherwise received and painted Julius Baer as an enemy of free speech.
RELATED: Top 7 Anti-Corporate Websites
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