Is your name or your company's name being ripped off online?
wow, was I surprised the other day when I went to search.twitter.com and found that a lot of companies are using my name in their tweets to market their own products and services. For example, someone has my name in their tweet to promote their hair implant clinic in India. Another company uses my name in their tweet to promote their company that provides legal services while another uses my name to promote the sale of iron beds -- and I have no idea who these companies are.
There are a couple of lessons here:
1. Do you know who you are really doing business with? It seems anybody can rip off a name online. It's not like when you walk into a brick and mortar operation, is it?
2. And is someone using your name to steal business and customers from you? I also found a half dozen websites that use variations of my name, or my whole name, in their website addresses.
It would be nice if we could police everything, but with so much media out there, and so many ways to advertise in many media, it's getting very difficult to get a grasp on who's who.
Shop carefully, Alan
