Buzz Marketing with Blogs: Legal Issues of Blogging

Legal Issues of Blogging

Susannah brought up legal issues, and questions from the audience started popping up like mushrooms after a rain.

Susannah Gardner at BlogAsia All the questions seemed to be variations of “Will my company run into legal problems if we start blogging?”

Well, legal troubles are a very broad topic. But it’s unlikely.

What about libel?

There have been no court-adjudicated libel cases involving blogs, so far. that could be because blogs are new, or because bloggers are poor. But it’s also because bloggers have a natural aversion to libel given that they have a personal, public reputation to uphold of their own. And, it’s because most bloggers have swift, fair policies for how to deal with libelous statements made in comments.

Blogging, because it’s easy to publish and correct, makes it easy to fix information you find to be false or damaging, and also makes it hard for you to ignore requests to do so. So be quick and fair when it comes to writing and correcting your own blog, and libel won’t be an issue.

Is it necessary to run every blog post past your legal department?

No, hardly. You don’t need a lawyer to review every phone call, or every brochure, so they don’t need to review every blog post. Of course, a very few people are working for a company in a highly regulated industry where such precautions are necessary. Having a lawyer review your company’s blogging plociy—that’s a good idea. And having appropriate disclaimers, and making sure you hire or use a reliable blogger, is probably your best defense.

As for policies, you may need a policy for your own company blog(s). You could also need another blog policy for how you deal with employees who have their own blogs.

I’m cross-posting this on three sites: Buzz Marketing with Blogs, Radiant Marketing Group, and BlogAsia. If you’d like to comment, please come to BlogAsia to do so.

Posted by Travis Smith on 09/20 at 07:30 PM • Blogging Events -- Law and Ethics

Comments

No, hardly. You don�t need a lawyer to review every phone call, or every brochure, so they don�t need to review every blog post.
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Great point! We live in such a litigious society that people are often scared, without good reason, of potential legal problems. The result is that a lot of companies get “analysis paralysis,” missing out on great opportunities to blog.

While our company certainly has an interest in people think about lawyers more often, I can easily say potential libel lawsuits aren’t as big of a threat as many people think they are. For small companies, it’s usually a complete non issue. And like you point out, a potential problem can likely be easily resolved by hitting the “edit” or “delete” button.

Posted by NickfromAvvo on 05/23 at 09:13 AM