Gibson Featured in Forbes.com Story Titled “Online Reputation: New Methods Emerge For Quashing Fake, Defamatory Reviews”

Whitney Gibson, a partner in the Vorys Cincinnati office and the leader of the firm’s internet defamation group, was quoted was in a Forbes.com story about the increase of false online reviews.  The story states:

“Reputation is big business. Knowing that 70 percent of people trust online reviews and only 14 percent believe online advertisements, scurrilous providers are openly—even brazenly—stuffing the online universe with phony product and service reviews. Conversely, Gibson also notes the rampant increase in efforts by individuals and companies to sink competitors or to harm their enemies by posting negative news and reviews.

‘We’re seeing the increasing phenomena of posting by ex’s: ex-employees, ex-customers, ex-friends, spouses and romantic partners—who feel the need and believe they see the opportunity to get even by posting defamatory information and phony reviews,’ he says.”

The story also notes that there are steps businesses and consumers can take to remove false reviews from the internet.  It states:

“The good news, according to Gibson, is that reputation management attorneys are becoming more skilled at vetting out the information that is likely to meet the legal definition of defamation if tested in court and are increasingly efficient at getting the bad content removed from its source.

It is also getting easier to locate publishers of false information through their IP addresses (and some sites even publish the information directly). In the cases where a cluster of negative reviews appears suddenly, victims may often have an instinct or at least a fair idea of who is perpetrating the information, Gibson says, making it easier to locate the sources and get the activities stopped.”

To read the entire article, visit Forbes.com.