Slight penalty lends a hand to businesses to play dirty on rivals

Businesses have complained that they have incurred big losses due to the “dirty PR campaigns” on the Internet carried out by their rivals. Meanwhile, the penalties prove to be not heavy enough to render the violators.

In the digital era, there are many ways of speaking ill of the rivals, and one of the most effective ways is posting wrong information on Internet.

Social networks, forums and websites have become the tool for individuals and businesses to speak ill of their rivals with an aim to smear the good repute of the rivals.

Profits from “dirty PR campaigns” bigger than penalties

Pham Truong Son, Deputy General Director of Pham Gia Automobile Engineering Company, said that he was once the victim of a “dirty PR trick”. Another manufacturer used Internet and forums to speak ill of Son’s enterprise for a long time.

The story only ended when Pham Gia lodged a complaint about the administrator of the forum to C50 – the Policy Agency on Fighting against the Crimes using high technologies – and the HCM City Information and Communication Department. The final judgment was made that the violator was forced to pay 20 million dong in fines and it must post an apology on local media.

“However, the trick brought us big losses already, while nearly 400 our workers were spiritually because of the bad comments posted on the forum.”

“Our revenue dropped dramatically by 65 percent at that time,” Son said.

Kymdan, the mattress manufacturer, was also the victim of the dirty tricks. In April 2011, a website appeared with a comment which said Kymdan’s products have bad quality. Kymdan then asked the administrator to remove the wrong information within three days. However, three days was enough to bring big losses to manufacturers.

Nguyen Van Hau, a Lawyer from the HCM City Bar Association, said that speaking ill of rivals on social networks, websites and forums must be seen as a kind of unhealthy competition which causes big losses to enterprises. “This is a kind of dirty PR,” he said.

Violators would rather to pay fines than stop dirty tricks

The common final judgment in such cases is that the violators have to pay fines and apologize to the victims. However, this does not mean the victory for the victims. It is the violators who win the cases, because they can successfully harm the enterprises.

The problem is that the stipulated penalties are too slight, and violators would rather pay penalties than stop dirty tricks. In other words, the benefits violators can earn are much bigger than the penalties they have to pay.

“The stipulated penalties have become out of date which cannot help stop the violation,” lawyer Hau said.

Dao Kim Phu, Chief of the Southern Office of the Radi Television and Electronic Information Management Department under the Ministry of Information and Communication, noted that there are many legal documents stipulating the punishments, but the documents have not been updated with the rapid development of electronic information.

It is really difficult for the victims to collect proofs to sue the violators, while management agencies and courts also get embarrassed in dealing with the cases. Users just need to create anonymous accounts to speak ill of other peoples on Internet.

“In order to sue the violators, victims need to prove their losses, but how? In many cases, when the grass grows, the horse starves,” Hau said

Lawyers have called on state management agencies to raise the penalty levels imposed on the violations in the field. They said that in other countries, violators always bear very heavy fines for the behavior of speaking ill of other people. In 2010, the US got one billion dollar in penalty in this field. – Nguoi Lao Dong

Tags: Vietnam companies, Vietnam enterprises, Vietnam SMEs