Hotwire recently blogged about a recent change to UK media law that makes a certain practice of ‘fake blogging’ against the law. What used to be just a faux pas is now more than just that. In plain English, the law means that organisations should not pretend to be consumers.
To prove just how relevant this issue is, an article appeared on the front page of the US edition of PR Week, describing an incident where New-York based agency 5W Public Relations acknowledged that a senior executive was involved in misconduct by impersonating a client when leaving a comment on a blog.
The incident arose when 5W Senior Vice President, Juda Engelmayer, left comments under a client’s name on the Failed Messiah blog. The comments were then traced back to the IP address of Engelmayer, showing how people who undertake this now illegal practice are leaving themselves open to be caught.
The CEO of 5W, Ronn Torossian, said that they had instituted internal measures to ensure this cannot happen again: “A senior staff member failed to be transparent in dealing with client matters,” Torossian said. “He has taken full responsibility.”
For further reading on this, check the BBC’s take on the law and read the PR Week article.Cross-posted to the Hotwire Interactive blog.
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