By Greg Hazley
PRWeb said a phony press release announcing an acquisition by Google was a case of "identity theft" which has been turned over to authorities for investigation.
The press release service owned by Vocus on Nov. 26 transmitted an announcement claiming that Google had acquired wireless Internet provider ICOA for $400M
Vocus CMO Jason Jue said the company has "levels of safeguards and redundancies" to verify releases but added that "no safeguard is perfect." He said the company has made additional changes to its processes in the wake of the ICOA release "to guard against this from happening again."
In an earlier statement, PR director Frank Strong said the company reviews all releases and follows an internal process to verify the source. "Even with reasonable safeguards, identity theft occurs, on occasion, across all of the major wire services," he said.
Outlets covering the news based on the press release included the Associated Press, AllthingsD, Techcrunch and Silicon Alley Insider, among others.
ICOA's CEO told CNNMoney he suspected a stock promoter organized the hoax, which led to a large spike in trading of ICOA's pink sheets-traded shares.
PRWeb removed the release and turned the matter over the authorities, said Strong.
Vocus CEO Rick Rudman apologized for the flap on Nov. 29. "We’re sorry for any frustration or embarrassment we caused to the people who rely on the news releases we distribute, and we’ve already made changes to do better going forward," he wrote in a blog post.
Rudman stressed that an editor reviews every release submitted for distribution, checking a variety of factors related to content and sender authenticity. He said the company will "continue to evolve."
Dow Jones in April carried a fraudulent Bank of America press release, while Business Wire and PR Newswire transmitted phony releases days apart in 2010.
In 2009, two fake press releases announcing the acquisition of a search engine company by Microsoft and Google were sent by a discount online release service, 12PressRelease.com. |