Anonymity

Some people don’t like the fact that the Internet provides anonymity to commentators and critics. Some people are motivated by the attention. Others just want the truth to be part of the discourse.

Unfortunately, remaining anonymous is often the only real option. Who wants a “Fatwa” directed against them?

Who needs private investigators rifling through your garbage?

We've issued Sell recommendations on various companies (more than five, but less than ten - when Sell recommendations really meant something because they were so rare), and the backlash from management is not pleasant.

We have published a sell recommendation on a large comapny that was in the middle of a court case, as it was being accused of claiming that some features of its software were developed in-house, rather than through the partner they "no longer wanted to work with." When a very large shareholder of the company learned what we knew, the case was quickly settled. (We were told that the large shareholder demanded a settlement, otherwise selling the position in the open market would begin that afternoon).

There is real money and large personal fortunes of management involved. They will do what they need to do in order to protect their wealth and their company .

http://foolingsomepeople.com/main/

It happens all the time.

If you are on the receiving end of any negative comment, then you must do everything you can to control (or change) that negative view. Sometimes that control means you must do things that border on intimidation. If you say something negative about a public company, very often you will be banned, shunned, and excluded from any conversations with management going forward. It all depends on the context of the comments. For example, we’ve read the “research” of bulge bracket firms who spend millions of dollars each year paying “analysts” to provide Buy, Hold, etc, etc, recommendations on public companies. On a rare occasion, you will actually see a “Sell” – but get a copy of that one for the history books, because they don’t happen often.

This happens ALL THE TIME – despite commentary to the contrary. Alternatively, your own management team may be one shutting down negative comments. Remember the Deutche Bank banking analyst (Michael Mayo) who published negative comments about Chuck Prince (the CEO) at Citibank? He was even on CNBC for an interview. We haven’t heard him on any public forum since. It hurts your investment banking team and overall firm revenues when they get shut out of potential advisory business.

As a result, you very rarely see anything negative. When you do, it is wrapped up in the language of “markets” and “headwinds” and doublespeak gobble-di-gook. You don’t see very much criticism of management.

If you are on the receiving end of negative comments, and those comments are anonymous, then, what do you do? Comments like these are like a wildfire, something that can get out of control, and do so very quickly. You must do everything you can to control these comments.

So how do you control that? Do whatever you can to determine the identity of the anonymous commentary. There is no moral imperative to be transparent and reveal your identity in blogging. The moral imperative is truth and honesty.

Clearly, there is a desire to avoid anything that can be classified as libelous or slanderous. That’s wrong - even though people do that all the time in quiet conversations that can’t be definitively attributed in a court of law. Cynicism and speculation are fair as they are honest, even though they are opinions. People are certainly smart enough to figure out whether the commentary is honest, and not something more sinister.

If those goals are best achieved by anonymity, then so be it.