Through Intellectual Property laws
Registering the product under copyright and trademark: It is the best method to avoid brandjacking. Having trademark for any specific aspect of the product makes any unauthorized usage of it a punishable offense under the IP laws in India. By the virtue of Section 2(1) of the Indian Trade Marks Act, 2000, one can have trademark registration of any “symbol/sign capable of distinguishing goods and services of one person from another, any word (including personal names), design, numerals and shape of goods or their packaging as trademark. Courts in India have accorded protection to product titles, advertisements and names under the trademark law in the past.
As the name suggests, it is made up of combining two words: Brand + Hijacking. The social network, while bringing people together also makes them vulnerable to a large number of threats. As the technology is rapidly advancing, so are the different techniques through which people often engage in unscrupulous activities and misuse the global connection. Brandjacking is a relatively new term that for the first time came into limelight eight years back. In colloquial terms, brandjacking can be referred as an unauthorized takeover of someone’s online identity by some other person. Today many companies of the world are present on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter; they actively advertise their products on these platforms. Brandjacking occurs when a particular advertisement, feature, quality, etc. of a product is used by some unknown party to gain commercial benefit. The unknown parties make use of the ‘Brand name’ of for company self-benefits. In many cases, brandjacking is done to make illegal benefits but many times it is done for other malicious and hostile reasons. The effects of brandjacking on the host company (brand jacked) are many; it may range from huge financial losses to facing the wrath of negative publicity and losing the consumer base in the long run. Thus Brandjacking today has become a major issue in the corporate arena.
Brand Assassins
There are many hacking communities today which carry out brandjacking on monetary terms, by charging the suitable fees these people infiltrate the account of the targeted company and manipulate it as desired by the customer. These people are popularly referred to as ‘Brand Assassins’. These people usually operate through intermediaries and so most often can avoid the clutches of Law.
How to prevent Brandjacking?
Through Intellectual Property laws
Registering the product under copyright and trademark: It is the best method to avoid brandjacking. Having trademark for any specific aspect of the product makes any unauthorized usage of it a punishable offense under the IP laws in India. By the virtue of Section 2(1) of the Indian Trade Marks Act, 2000, one can have trademark registration of any “symbol/sign capable of distinguishing goods and services of one person from another, any word (including personal names), design, numerals and shape of goods or their packaging as trademark. Courts in India have accorded protection to product titles, advertisements and names under the trademark law in the past.
Forms of Brandjacking
Total Takeover
This is the most common form of brandjacking that occurs today. It is also the most dangerous one. The total takeover is done through hacking into the account of targeted company; it is also done through phishing. The most famous instance of a total takeover was in 2013 when the Twitter account of Burger King was hacked and revamped with the branding of McDonald’s. This type of brandjacking is considered the most dangerous as because the damage is imminent as the messages from the hacked account are transferred immediately to the followers. As in the Burger King’s case, the advertisements and other promotional activities were rebranded as McDonalds and so it resulted in negative publicity for the brand.
Impersonation
Impersonation is done maliciously to bring losses to the targeted company. This is done by altogether eliminating the account of the target and then setting up a new account is made taking distinct and unique features of the deleted account. The product is thus rebranded under a different name. This is done to gather huge consumer base in the short span of time, taking unfair advantage of the brand name of the targeted company.
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