Extract from “Gripe Sites: Sue or Stew”
By William G. Pecau
Gripe sites can be more than forums for criticism. Because some are run by or receive contributions from former employees or anonymous current dissatisfied employees, some gripe sites have access to and post non- public information about a company or its employees. Some of this information is false, some of it might be embarrassing, and some of it might be very harmful to a company.
One gripe site www.royaldutchshellplc. com, run by a former employee of Shell, credits itself with costing Shell billions of dollars. It claims to have disclosed environmental violations by a joint venture in Russia’s Sakhalin Islands that allowed Vladimir Putin’s government significant concessions from the Shell joint venture.
SOURCE – LAW JOURNAL NEWSLETTERS – THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STRATEGIST (PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2009)
