Online reputation attack solicitors
Someone is running a campaign against your business, or against you as its owner: fake news sites, anonymous accounts, a website in your name, messages to your customers, investors or regulator. You may know, or think you know, who is behind it, but you cannot prove it. Our own investigators find out who it is, usually within days, and then we stop it.
If it started today, do three things first. Preserve everything: screenshot every page, post and profile with its web address and the date, and keep any emails sent to your staff or clients, because a careful attacker deletes as soon as he senses trouble. Say nothing in public, and keep away from whoever you suspect. Report the worst items through each platform's own tool, which costs nothing, though it rarely ends a campaign. This article is for when it has not.
Accounts you had closed come back under new names. A website you have never seen carries your name. Your clients, your investors or your bank are asking questions, and someone has started writing to your staff and your suppliers. It could be a competitor, a former insider or someone with a grudge, and every day it carries on costs you more.
Attackers are good at this. They use accounts that lead nowhere, registrars that hide them and hosts in countries that ignore letters, and they change their habits the moment they sense they are being watched. Being almost certain is not the same as being able to prove it to a platform or a court, and a wrong accusation makes things worse. What gets the best and fastest result is one team that brings the law, the strategy, the technical knowledge, the investigation and the connections abroad, and has done it before against people who are trying to stay hidden.
Smear campaigns and online attacks we have stopped
For obvious reasons we cannot talk about most of our cases. We have rescued companies, owners and directors from campaigns mounted by competitors, former insiders, activists and paid operators, and most of those stories will never be public. A few we can describe.
Kate Rodgers ran a children's clothing franchise in the North West when the owner of a rival franchise went after her: a fake Facebook profile calling her a fraud, her phone number shared online, and more than 1,600 abusive messages sent through her website. We traced the messages to the rival's home, and at trial in the County Court at Manchester the judge found the harassment proved, awarded her £15,000 and granted a permanent injunction; permission to appeal was refused. The judgment is public: Rodgers v Brookes [2025] EWCC 31.
A surveyor fell out with his web designer over a £200 bill, and the designer answered with fake websites calling him a paedophile. The police could not link the sites to him, so we did: a US court order against the domain registrar gave us the records, and a short recording of his voice closed the gap. He was convicted of harassment and then paid damages and apologised in the High Court; the Paul Britton and Origin Design case tells the whole story.
An Israeli businessman found a website in his own name calling him an arms dealer who supplied Iran, copied onto other sites, forums and videos and pushed by some forty fake social media accounts. A US court declared the allegations false, and with that judgment we had the sites, videos and accounts taken down in one country after another. An international press investigation later traced the fake accounts to a disinformation-for-hire operation.
Frankie Rzucek, whose sister and nieces were murdered in Colorado, was accused in a run of YouTube videos of dishonestly raising money from the public. The High Court awarded him £40,000 and an injunction against the YouTuber in 2026; read the case of Frankie Rzucek v Alan Vinnicombe.
Red Rock Resources, a publicly listed mining company, came under an online campaign on investor forums accusing its chairman of fraud and mismanagement, which the company believed was aimed at driving the share price down and bringing him down with it. Once we issued proceedings, the investor behind it accepted the allegations were unfounded, apologised and paid compensation; the Red Rock Resources case tells how.
Everything you tell us stays between us. We speak with clients over encrypted channels rather than ordinary email, so the matter stays discreet wherever you are.
Investigation and court orders together: how we find who is behind it
Almost everything that works depends on knowing who is doing it, so that is where we begin. Our in-house investigators, lawyers trained in open-source intelligence with access to specialist databases, start on the first day. Reused usernames, writing habits, the timing of posts, domain registrations, the one place a careful attacker was careless: in most cases that puts a name to the accounts within days, and tells you whether you face one person or several. A theatre whose production was being talked down by what looked like a crowd turned out to be facing a handful of people, and we identified the people behind the hostile Facebook campaign before a single letter went out.
Most attackers prepare for one or the other. They hide from investigators behind fake accounts and privacy services, or they count on a court order taking months and producing an email address that leads nowhere. We use the two together, and that is what they do not expect. What our investigators find tells us which platform, host or registrar to take to court and exactly what to ask for in a Norwich Pharmacal order; what the order produces, an IP address, a payment record, a phone number, a recording, gives the investigators the thread they were missing. Each closes the gaps the other leaves, in Britain and, through our US attorneys, in America, where much of the hiding is done.
How we stop a smear campaign once we know who is behind it
Once we know who it is, we move on every front at once. Content comes down at source, through legal notices to the platforms, hosts and search engines that will not act on a complaint form. The people behind it are confronted with what we know. Where the campaign needs to stop now, we apply for an injunction, sometimes within days of the first call. These cases can be complicated, spreading across platforms, countries and sometimes the courts themselves, and we plan for that from the first day instead of hoping one step will end it.
The company can apply for its own injunction against harassment aimed at its directors, staff or customers under section 3A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and the owner can sue in her own name, as Kate Rodgers did against the rival franchise owner.
An attack that looks like a crowd is usually three people and a grievance. Find them, and the crowd goes quiet.
What not to do while the attack is under way
The most expensive mistakes are made in the first forty-eight hours, by business owners only trying to defend themselves. A public reply gives the attack an audience. An angry email to the wrong suspect creates a second problem and warns the right one. A day spent getting advice is a day well spent, even while the posts are still up. If the attacker has asked for money or anything else to stop, that is blackmail, and the usual advice does not apply: read blackmail and the legal routes that stop it and speak to us before you reply.
Why a law firm and not a reputation agency
A reputation agency works on how the attack looks. It pushes new content above it in the search results, monitors mentions, drafts statements and asks platforms to remove what breaks their rules. Some agencies pass parts of the work to other agents or freelancers, and all of them stop where the law begins: they cannot make a platform tell them who is behind an account, take down content the platform's rules allow, or go to court. A law firm works on the attack itself. We can compel disclosure, have unlawful content removed, identify the people behind it and stop them with an injunction, with damages where they are due.
The other difference is privilege. What you tell us, and what our investigation finds, is protected by legal professional privilege: nobody can make you or us hand it over, and the attacker sees what we know only when we choose to show them. An investigation bought from an agency has no such protection; the same investigation done by lawyers, for a case, does. When you do not yet know who you are dealing with, that is worth a great deal.
Why us
Law, strategy, technology, investigation and reach abroad, from one team that has been doing this for years, led by Yair Cohen, the UK's first internet law solicitor. We treat an attack as a strategy problem, so the first conversation is about what will end it and in what order. We know the internet from the inside: the platforms, hosts, registrars and review sites, and who at each acts on what. Our investigators and technical people sit beside the lawyers, so identification happens in days, under our own roof, protected as the lawyers' work.
Our reach is international. Over nearly twenty years we have obtained subpoenas and court orders from courts around the world through the attorneys we work with, and we deal directly with the providers and operators who hold the answers. We act for businesses across the UK and for owners in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.
The matters we handle, and are handling now, include smear campaigns against businesses and their owners, fake news sites, cloned websites and stolen domains, anonymous accounts that turned out to be a competitor or a former employee, harassment of directors and staff, and attacks on listed companies on investor forums. You can read about a business whose content was taken down wherever in the world it was hosted, and the rest of our business case studies. You will speak to the lawyer who will handle your case, and they will understand what is happening to you before you have finished explaining it.
If your problem is a single false statement, our article on defamation against a business covers the claim; if it is reviews alone, start with legal advice on online reviews.
What it costs
The cost follows the scale of the attack and how fast it needs to stop. In the first conversation we set out what we would do, in what order, and what it is likely to cost, so you decide with the plan and the figure in front of you.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an online reputation attack, and which law applies?
A campaign rather than a single bad review: fake news sites, profiles that exist only to post about you, a website in your name, messages to your customers, investors or regulator, sometimes even a court claim filed only so the allegation can be reported. In England a false statement that damages a trading business is defamation if it causes or is likely to cause serious financial loss (Defamation Act 2013, section 1), a campaign against the people in it is harassment, and a copied website is passing off. The same post can be unlawful here and protected speech where it is hosted, so we look at every country the campaign lives in.
Someone is running an anonymous online campaign against my company. Can you find out who it is?
In most cases, yes, usually within days. Our in-house investigators identify the people behind anonymous accounts from what those accounts leave on the open internet, and where that is not enough we obtain a court order requiring the platform or host to disclose the account holder.
The platforms say the posts do not break their rules. What can a solicitor do that I cannot?
A platform's reporting tool asks whether a post breaks its rules, not whether it is true or lawful. A legal notice from us sets out why the content is unlawful, with the evidence, and goes to the people who act on legal notices rather than the moderation team.
How do you stop a smear campaign against a business?
By finding out who is behind it and moving on every front at once: legal notices that take the content down at source, the people behind it confronted with what we know, and an injunction where it needs to stop now, with damages where they are due.
Can a company get an injunction against someone harassing its directors and staff?
Yes. Under section 3A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 a company targeted by a campaign aimed at its directors, staff or customers can apply for an injunction in its own name. Breach of the injunction is a criminal offence.
Should I reply to the posts myself?
We would advise against replying in public until you have had advice. A reply gives the post an audience, and an accusation aimed at the wrong person creates a second problem. Screenshot everything, report it through the platform's tool, and speak to us.
The attacker is in another country. Can you still stop them?
Usually, yes. English courts can order platforms and hosts to disclose and remove, and for attackers behind American companies our US attorneys obtain subpoenas and orders there. A court order from one country has moved hosts in another when nothing else had.
