Getting Even or Getting Skewered: Piercing the Digital Veil of Anonymous Internet Speech as a Corporate Public Relations Tactic (Vengeance is Not Yours, Sayeth the Courts)

Who said that? Asking that simple question when the vitriol flows across the Web is natural and human, especially when one’s secrets are publicly aired, or when the criticism stings, whether well founded or not. Defamation, interference with business and personal relationships, exposure of trade secrets, business plans and other less business-like information, gossip, and harassing speech by unknown persons with a screen name and Internet connection all occupy “the dark side of anonymous online speech.”1 Memorialized and amplified by technology, this dark speech takes on a much longer life and potency than mere rumors spread by word-of-mouth or the occasional letter campaign or pamphlet. The dark speech can traverse the globe, for years, eluding countervailing efforts to correct the record. Responding to the unknown sources of destructive or mischievous speech is the public relations equivalent of fighting a guerilla war. What then is the target to do? Demands to unmask the critics, malcontents, and digital provocateurs are not only understandable, they are logical and even necessary in some cases