You never know who is listening on the Internet.
kelly
The Wall Street Journal
January 17, 2001
E-People
Online Detective Agency Keeps
An Eye On Potential 'Enemies'
By STEPHANIE GRUNER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
When critics of companies such as Unilever, Burger King or BMW have
something nasty to say, it's often Roy Lipski who hears it first. Mr.
Lipski is the 29-year-old British founder of Infonic Ltd.
(www.infonic.com), a Web detective agency that keeps blue chips
informed about their online foes.
Just this past autumn when Ben & Jerry's loyalists heaped fresh
criticism on the ice-cream maker's parent company, Unilever NV, Mr.
Lipski's firm, which daily monitors the Internet for the Anglo-Dutch
consumer-goods giant, quickly notified it of spreading discontent.
"Companies are like sieves now," says Mr. Lipski. "If you look at a
company like Nike, there are a million pages dedicated to Nike of
which less than half are created by Nike."
graphic
Just like a real detective agency, Infonic is tucked away in a
hard-to-find back alley in London. The small, no-frills office is
relatively quiet, save the buzz of a dozen or so employees tapping
away on keyboards as they pop in on online chat sites, newsgroups, and
news aggregator services, looking for dirt by typing in phrases like
"boycott Ben & Jerry's" or, say, "Burger King bites."
With online chat about companies potentially as explosive -- not to
mention as embarrassing -- as a Jerry Springer show, corporations are
increasingly hiring online sleuthing services to monitor their brands.
PR Newswire unit eWatch in the U.S. tracks rumors, employees' and
clients' gripes, stock banter on investor sites and activists' talk
online for more than 800 companies. Other firms, such as Internet
Crimes Group Inc. (www.internetcrimesgroup.com) in the U.S., unmask
supposedly anonymous online critics as well as cyber criminals.
Infonic is one of a handful of such sleuthing firms based in Europe. A
little more than three years old, the company serves some of the
biggest names in business, including Diageo PLC, which owns well-known
brands such as Guinness and Burger King, jeans giant Levi Strauss &
Co. and Shell Chemicals.
But dabbling in spy work often turns dangerous. Last autumn word
spread fast online that Sony Corp. had used Infonic to fight an
ongoing environmental campaign against it. A document from Sony,
detailing activists' campaigns as well as a strategy for fighting
organizations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth -- who are
pushing for regulations to make electronics manufacturers responsible
for their toxic waste -- leaked onto the Web. Soon, articles appeared
reporting that Sony had been using Infonic to spy on activists --
tarnishing both companies' reputations. Mr. Lipski says his firm never
actually worked for Sony, but rather had pitched it business, which
resulted in Infonic being mentioned in the document.
Critics worry, however, that online monitoring services potentially
violate personal privacy and freedom of speech. "They work undercover,
so you never know what exactly they are doing," says Eveline Lubbers,
an activist and author who is writing a book due out this autumn about
corporate counter-strategies online. She points to companies such as
Northwest Airlines, which uses eWatch. Last year Northwest tracked
down employees suspected of organizing via the Internet a call-in-sick
campaign, which disrupted service over the Christmas holidays. The
airline then won a court order to search computer hard drives at the
homes of some flight attendants suspected of using the Internet to run
the campaign. Renu Aldrich, a spokeswoman at eWatch's parent company,
PR Newswire, shies away from any involvement in the Northwest episode,
explaining: "We're just a conduit for information here. However anyone
uses that information is up to the company."
Mr. Lipski, a geneticist by training disputes the Big Brother image.
"I feel very strongly that focusing on the dark side of the Internet
is missing half the point," he says. With more online chatter from
employees, customers, journalists and activists, it's difficult for
companies to stay in the conversation, he says. Further, with
increasing online transparency and freewheeling conversations, he says
he's helping companies create new ways of engaging the public. For
example, at Infonic's suggestion, Diageo now posts both positive and
negative news stories about itself on its own Web site as long as they
are factually accurate.
When talk of a potential boycott hit Unilever late last year, Infonic
quickly alerted the company about the online threat. Protests posted
at savebenandjerrys.com (www.savebenandjerrys.com) said Unilever
hadn't kept its promises to uphold the brand's socially responsible
agenda and rejected Unilever's new choice of leader for the
Vermont-based unit. By the time the story hit the mainstream press,
Unilever, through its weekly updates and more timely alerts from
Infonic, had become well-versed in the concerns.
Mr. Lipski, a onetime fixed-income analyst at Goldman Sachs, who
scored his first Infonic clients by cold-calling them from his
bedroom, says business is now booming. Infonic raised $1.2 million
(1.3 million euros) in venture capital last year and doubled its
client base to 38.
Still, he cringes at the cloak-and-dagger image, recoiling from labels
such as online detective agency or sleuthing service. In addition to
providing an Internet monitoring service, he says, Infonic conducts
Internet-based research and consults on how to engage with online
audiences.
"There's no snooping taking place here," he says. "This is all public
access information. It's no more snooping than doing market research."
Write to Stephanie Gruner at [log in to unmask]
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|
