The result of online libel is often lost customers, which is something no company wants to experience. Negative publicity has always existed in one form or another, but the advent of the Internet has made it so that negative publicity proliferates because any Joe or Jane Sixpack can skewer any company or product they dislike for whatever reason. This is both the advantage and problem of the Internet–it’s communicationd are instantaneous, it is accessible universally, and it what is said cannot be quarantined.
http://www.vinove.com/mindscape/internet-marketing/negative-publicity-management/