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Perspective | How should companies protect their rights when their reputation is infringed upon by the use of online information?

Published:

2025-03-28

In the digital age, the rapid spread of online information brings opportunities for businesses while also exposing them to the risk of reputational damage. Insulting and defamatory acts can severely harm a company's business reputation and product reputation, thus affecting its economic benefits and market competitiveness. To effectively deal with such infringement, companies need to clarify the forms of infringement and adopt diversified rights protection measures, including complaining to online platforms, issuing official statements, sending lawyer's letters, filing civil lawsuits, or requesting the intervention of public security organs. In addition, the timely collection of evidence and the rigorous determination of causality are key to litigation for rights protection. This article aims to clarify the specific manifestations of infringement of corporate reputation rights, analyze feasible rights protection approaches, and provide practical operational suggestions to help companies legally protect their legitimate rights and interests and reduce negative impacts.

In the digital age, the rapid spread of online information brings opportunities for businesses while also exposing them to the risk of reputational damage. Insulting and defamatory acts can severely damage a company's business reputation and product reputation, thereby affecting its economic benefits and market competitiveness. To effectively deal with such infringements, businesses need to clearly define the forms of infringement and adopt diversified rights protection measures, including filing complaints with online platforms, issuing official statements, sending lawyers' letters, filing civil lawsuits, or requesting police intervention. In addition, timely evidence collection and rigorous determination of causality are key to litigation rights protection. This article aims to clarify the specific manifestations of corporate reputational infringement, analyze feasible rights protection methods, and provide practical operational suggestions to help companies legally protect their legitimate rights and interests and reduce negative impacts.

I. Manifestations of Infringement on Corporate Reputational Rights

According to the provisions of the "Civil Code of the People's Republic of China," the types of acts that infringe on corporate reputational rights mainly revolve around insulting and defamatory acts. Insulting acts refer to using insulting remarks to evaluate factors related to corporate reputational rights, while defamatory acts refer to fabricating and disseminating false facts that smear the quality of a company's products, leaders, Culture, etc. In the same event, insulting and defamatory acts often coexist.

Specific manifestations of infringement on corporate reputational rights are generally as follows:

• 1. Directly fabricating and spreading false facts to damage the business reputation (or product reputation) of other companies through text, pictures, remarks, banners, etc.

• 2. Defaming and denigrating competitors in their own company's product promotion and sales activities.

• 3. Using forms such as distributing corporate open letters, holding corporate press conferences, and publishing "comparative advertising" or "declarative advertising" to create and spread false facts that damage the business reputation (or product reputation) of competitors.

• 4. Spreading false facts to customers or consumers during the company's external operations, undermining the business reputation (or product reputation) of competitors.

• 5. Organizing personnel to make false complaints to relevant market supervision and management departments in the name of customers or consumers about the poor quality of competitors' products, poor service quality, or infringement of consumer rights, in order to increase the number of social complaints against competitors and thereby achieve the purpose of undermining their business reputation.

II. Rights Protection Channels and Specific Measures

(1) Complain to the online platform and request the deletion of infringing information (if online infringement is involved)

Many online service providers have established relatively complete infringement complaint mechanisms. Major online platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin have publicized their complaint rules and channels to online users. By directly notifying the online platform to delete or block the information that infringes on their reputational rights, businesses can immediately prevent the spread of false statements.

(2) Issuing an Official Statement

After a reputational infringement incident occurs, companies may consider issuing a sincere and authoritative official statement to quickly eliminate negative impacts and warn infringers.

However, for situations where the impact is controllable, it is advisable to cautiously decide whether to adopt this method, and it is necessary to assess the potential for creating new topics and expanding media influence.

(3) Sending a Lawyer's Letter to the Infringer

If the infringer, after receiving the lawyer's letter, still does not stop the infringement, it will usually be deemed to have malicious intent in the litigation process, which will aggravate the legal liability of the infringer.

(4) Filing a Civil Lawsuit with the Court

For reputational infringement acts involving emergencies or irreversible damage consequences, companies can also apply for a pre-litigation injunction at the time of filing a lawsuit to promptly prevent the continued spread of infringing remarks.

(5) Requesting Public Security Organs for Public Security (Administrative) Punishment for Insult and Defamation

If insulting and defamatory information is published and spread through the Internet (such as WeChat, Douyin, etc.) against a company, causing adverse effects, the victim can report the case to the public security organs; after the public security organs verify the facts, they have the right to impose corresponding administrative penalties based on Article 42, paragraph (2) of the "Public Security Administration Punishment Law." When the acts of insult and defamation do not constitute a crime, the circumstances are relatively minor, and no serious consequences have been caused, the victim often can choose the administrative channel for rights protection and redress.

(6) Criminal Prosecution

1. [(Using the Information Network) Crime of Defamation]

If an actor uses the internet to defame a company, and the same defamatory information is actually clicked and viewed more than 5,000 times, or is forwarded more than 500 times, it constitutes this crime.

2. [Crime of Infringing on the Business Reputation or Product Reputation of Enterprises]

Article 66 of the "Regulations on the Standards for the Filing and Prosecution of Criminal Cases under the Jurisdiction of Public Security Organs (II)" stipulates: "Fabricating and spreading false facts that harm the business reputation or product reputation of others, and involving one of the following situations, shall be subject to investigation and prosecution: (1) Causing direct economic losses of more than 500,000 yuan to others; (2) Even if the above amount standard is not met, but causing companies or enterprises to shut down or cease production for six months or more, or bankruptcy; (3) Other situations that cause significant losses to others or have other serious circumstances."

III. How to File a Lawsuit with the Court

(1) Evidence Collection

1. Evidence proving the subject qualification of the parties.

Legal basis:

《Supreme People's Court's Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Trying Civil Disputes Involving Infringement of Personal Rights through the Use of Information Networks》

Article 3 If the plaintiff sues a network service provider, and the network service provider argues that the allegedly infringing information was posted by a network user, the people's court may, based on the plaintiff's request and the specific circumstances of the case,order the network service provider to provide the people's court with information that can identify the name (name), contact information, and network Address of the allegedly infringing network user.

If the plaintiff requests,adding the network user as a defendant based on the information provided by the network service provider,the people's court shall grant the request.

2. Evidence proving the infringement, such as news media and publications reporting on false information that harms the company's reputation (original media of the report); literary works that fabricate facts, insinuate, and defame the company; evidence of oral or written insults that damage the company's reputation (witness testimony, written materials); evidence of slandering the company's reputation by concealing the truth, fabricating facts, and spreading them, etc.

In judicial practice, it is generally judged by the feelings and evaluations of third parties. As long as the victim proves that the illegal act of the infringer has been known to third parties, it can be determined that the infringement has caused a decrease in the victim's social evaluation. Specifically, the determination of online reputational infringement is mainly based on the number of views, reposts, and likes of the infringing content. Therefore, the victim should pay special attention to the number of views, reposts, and likes of the infringing content during the evidence preservation process.

3. Evidence proving that the infringement has caused damage, such as an audit report showing a decline in the company's economic performance. If there is a specific litigation request, submit the calculation method, basis, and list of the amount of the litigation request.

(2) Scope of Compensation

Compensation methods include property compensation and non-property compensation. The former refers to the infringer compensating for economic losses, while the latter refers to eliminating the impact and restoring reputation. When determining the amount of compensation, the court will comprehensively consider factors such as the scope and duration of the dissemination of the infringing content, the notoriety of the infringer, the degree of fault, the impact of the reputational infringement on product sales, and the company's market value. In cases where it is difficult to determine the actual loss, the court may determine the amount of compensation within 500,000 yuan.

1. Economic losses generally include direct economic losses and indirect economic losses.

Direct economic losses include serious sluggish sales of goods, large-scale product returns, contract termination, serious reduction in sales and profits, significant reduction in income, and significant drop in stock prices of listed companies. Indirect economic losses include expenses and expenditures incurred to restore reputation, such as advertising costs and litigation costs.

The court adopts the principle of "actual occurrence + reasonable necessity" in determining losses. Direct economic losses: Evidence must be provided to prove the direct causal relationship between the infringement and the economic losses (such as customer loss, decline in business volume). If this cannot be proved, the court may only support the actual reasonable costs of rights protection (such as lawyer's fees and notarization fees). For example, in case (2024) Jin1102 Minchu 355, the court only supported the plaintiff's actual payment of 6,000 yuan in lawyer's fees and did not support other claims for economic losses.

2. Determination of Causal Relationship

In cases of infringement of reputation rights, the court will usually consider the causal relationship between the direct economic losses caused to the enterprise by the reputational infringement and the infringing act. When determining the causal relationship, it is required that there be a direct or highly correlated relationship between the infringing act and the consequences of the damage. If the infringing remarks are spread through public media such as WeChat Moments and Douyin, and the remarks are known to specific or unspecified public and cause negative evaluations, the causal relationship can be considered established.

The court usually judges the causal relationship through the scope of audience of the remarks and its relevance to the enterprise's customer base. In case [(2024) Jin1102 Minchu 355], the defendant spread false information through public platforms such as Douyin and WeChat Moments. The court believed that its dissemination scope covered the enterprise's customer base, directly leading to negative public evaluation of the enterprise. Similarly, in case [(2020) Qian26 Minzhong 4399], the defendant's remarks in the WeChat Moments were deemed to "inevitably cause discussions among relevant personnel", thus establishing a causal relationship.

If the remarks are not actually spread or the audience has no direct connection with the enterprise, the court may deny the causal relationship. For example, in case [(2023) E10 Minzhong 2794], although the defendant posted false information in the WeChat Moments, the plaintiff failed to prove that the remarks were widely spread or directly affected customer decisions, resulting in economic losses to the victim. The court only supported an apology and did not recognize economic losses.

In practical operation, enterprises should immediately fix the evidence of infringement (such as the content of the dissemination), and quantify the degree of damage to social evaluation through public opinion monitoring reports and customer interview records, while retaining legal vouchers for rights protection expenditures to support claims for compensation.

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