How do you deal with defamation?

I apologize if this has been answered before in a previous thread, but how would you go about dealing with others who are out to hurt your name and reputation out of spite and/or aggressive competition? As a successful business and club owner in SL, this is something I've always dreaded happening.

If you'd like to know the back story, read on..

After taking a few days off of SL, I sign on today to find piles of IMs from angry people, either telling me to stop sending them notecards or threatening to AR me for harassment and spamming. The first thought that came to my mind was that one of my "GiveInventory" billboards was going haywire, but I highly doubt such a small and simple script that I've been using for an entire year would suddenly do such a thing, especially when the person needs to walk up to the object and click it to receive the notecard in the first place.

The billboard I'm referring to is advertising my very first in-world magazine issue I'm working on. The notecard I made for the billboard lets people know what the magazine is about and gives them a chance to fill out a short application form in case they're interested in being featured in the magazine itself. The notecard is full perm so it can be passed around if people want to spread the word. Knowing how agressive the magazine business is, and the fact that I stated mine would be absolutely free for the public to read, there's no doubt this has caused some friction.

Everyone who sent me an IM accusing me of "spamming" them is offline so I still have yet to find out exactly what the notecard is. For all I know, it might not have anything to do with my magazine. Even so, this still concerns me greatly. It's either a very serious SL bug or someone is out to drag my name through the mud because I'm a threat to them somehow.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar? What did you do about people trying to hurt your business with slander and underhanded libel?

Hmm, this reminds me of something that happened to me a few weeks ago. I received an offline IM saying "Thanks for the spam". When I tried to follow up (I was at work at the time), the person on the other end was incredibly rude and unforthcoming with the information I needed- even after I calmly explained that whatever it was didn't come from me and asked for more details. At first I thought my account might have been hijacked and was extremely concerned. Then she said something barely intelligible about having looked at the properties of something (at first I thought it was an object, but her later ramblings led me to believe that maybe it was a notecard) and saw that I was the creator. She refused to tell me who it was that actually sent whatever it was to her. She continued threatening me with legal action (apparently the notecard/object/whatever was advertising some porn/DVD system) and refused to listen. Then she muted me for "harrassing her" when all I had done was politely ask for information in response to her accusations and threats. *sigh* All this happened while I was e-mailing on my cellphone while at a company-wide meeting.

I never did find out what had happened. My best guess is that someone took a notecard that I had created - probably from one of my vendors - and used that as the basis for their spam notecard. A lot of people do that because the method for creating a notecard from scratch isn't very intuitive (Inventory/Create/Notecard).

It seems like a no-brainer that one would respond to the person who sends an object and not to the creator. The whole episode was very bizarre and surreal.

Not much you can do, other than have a really stable, long term reputation for good business in the first place. Which is always the best defence.

Also, if someone slings mud, don't sling mud back. From a distance, when all that's apparent is two people slinging mud, and it's really hard to tell the difference once both are covered in slime.

And if you have a statement to make re: your position, make it only once, and keep it short, understandable, and clear.

Basic PR 101.

Best thing is probably to tell them please check their transaction history to see who actually gave the item to you. It doesn't even occur to me to look at the creator.

If I get a note card that seems to come from you, I'll gladly pass it on. Given that many people just look at the first name on the properties of an item, it's not the least bit surprising that this happens.

Make your information notecards no-mod for next owner. I can understand the confusion on the part of the offended party - "YOU created it!" .. well, yeah, but somebody ELSE modified it with the porn crap and gave it to you..

Notecards really should have some system detailing they have been modified - If noting else changing the creator name.

I have run into this before where someone used another's notecard to spam people with.