How To Protect Your Business While Avoiding The Streisand Effect
When someone does something that threatens your company's good reputation, client pool, or bottom line, business owners and managers may need to respond quickly to prevent damage. However, the wrong response can actually exacerbate the damage. How? It may create a phenomenon known as the Streisand Effect.
What is this effect? And how can you prevent it from happening in your case? Here's what every company needs to know.
What is the Streisand Effect?
The Streisand Effect gets its name from an incident involving the singer. After a photographer posted photos of the coast online, Barbra Streisand discovered that her home was visible among the thousands of images. In 2003, she initiated multi-million dollar litigation for invading her privacy.
However, in an unfortunate turn, the publicity brought by the huge lawsuit just gave more attention to the photo. Whereas only a handful of people had downloaded the image before the lawsuit, thousands downloaded it afterward. And because Streisand did not even win her case, the unwanted notoriety served no purpose.
How Can You Avoid the Streisand Effect?
The moral of the story is that a business must carefully analyze how various responses to legal issues could backfire. As in the original case, threatening legal action can amplify something that you would rather quash.
Is a competitor infringing on your trade dress? Have they said defamatory things? Rather than send a grandiose and threatening cease-and-desist letter, for example, take your time to build a solid case before approaching the matter. Work with a professional corporate attorney in all communications to avoid emotional or reactive language that the competitor may use against you in the court of public opinion.
In addition, carefully determine exactly which elements of the infringement or defamation are most important to fix. If someone is publicizing a negative review of your company, your first instinct may be to try to get the entire statement removed. However, ceding some aspects of it while requesting corrective action about outright, demonstrative slander or libel allows you to protect the company from the worst harm while also appearing reasonable.
Where Should You Start?
Not all infringement, theft, or defamation can (or should) be ignored by a business that fears unintended consequences. But the path you take in response goes a long way toward minimizing or maximizing the damage being caused. The best place to begin is by meeting with a qualified corporate litigation attorney in your state. With their help, you'll find the balance between protecting your enterprise and keeping a lid on negativity.
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