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Teck Cominco Limited is a diversified mining and metals company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. It is a world leader in the production of copper, zinc and metallurgical coal and a significant producer of gold and specialty metals. The company has full or partial ownership of approximately 20 properties throughout North and South America and Australia.
A spoofing dilemma
While maintaining vigilance of all online activities has always been a top priority for Teck Cominco, it was a job that was growing beyond the organization’s in-house capabilities. This became evident when it discovered that its site was being spoofed by a group in California that was using the company’s photos and logos to attract investors.
According to Kalev Ruberg, Chief Information Officer, Teck Cominco Ltd., knowing about the problem was one thing. Solving it proved harder than expected.
Although the site had not done any fiscal damage at that point, resolving it in a timely fashion was critical. “Our industry is very sensitive to investor confidence, so it was imperative we stop this group based out of who knows where in California spoofing our site. The worst part was some of our biggest, long-term investors were seeing this site and questioning our ability to protect ourselves. It was a matter of maintaining our operational integrity.”
After several attempts at contacting the domain registrar and costly investigative work, the site was still up and running. “A lot of dollars had been spent and we were no closer to getting it resolved,” says Ruberg. "It was time to find a company that specialized in online ‘policing’ - one that understood Internet and brand protection issues and could provide us with the kind of service we needed to stop these guys.”
In July 2007, Teck Cominco engaged BrandProtect to provide brand monitoring services. Before implementing ongoing services however, the first order of the day was to deal with the spoofing issue.
Within 48 hours, the BrandProtect team was able to shut down the site – even before the final contract was signed.
Maintaining the status quo
Since the initial project, BrandProtect has been providing ongoing monitoring and brand protection services for several of the Teck Cominco websites. Teck Cominco receives summary scanning reports every week, and a more detailed report at the end of each month. “Now we always know who is doing what to our name.”
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Keeping pace with online activities relating to brand usage is of critical importance for mining operations such as Teck Cominco. In an industry that is strongly focused on protecting investor confidence, as well as health and safety, Teck Cominco found that the services of BD-BrandProtect could play an important role in tracking fraudulent sites, as well as enhancing their ability to keep track of public concerns and safety issues. |
