Technology & Franchise Law - Franchise Law News

Data breaches are common: more than 300 major breaches involving more than 100 million consumer records are reported each year. Almost every breach is unanticipated and extremely costly (studies indicate that companies often pay between $50 and $79 per lost record).
Like most companies, franchisors have significant quantities of sensitive data that often includes information on customers, employees, and about their franchisees. Franchisors face an additional obstacle: their franchisees often collect large quantities of sensitive data about their customers and their employees. When franchisees experience data security problems, those problems often have a ripple effect that creates severe reputational (and often legal) costs to the entire franchise system...

The onset of social media may have taken some by surprise, and others may have written off its arrival anticipating an equally quick departure. Whichever it may be, social media is not a passing fad and should be recognized as an integral part of marketing. Franchise systems experience special challenges when pursuing a social media presence and should consider the following:

1) Establish protocol for social media subdomains. Most social media websites enable participation by companies that register a subdomain (e.g., www.socialmedia.com/brand). Social media websites, however, are already a crowded space for brands, with multiple companies regularly battling for subdomains on a particular website. The situation is more complex for franchisors, who are expected to establish a social media presence for themselves, and also enable franchisees to do the same...

There is an open debate among attorneys over the value of using social media (blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter predominantly) and even websites to generate business for themselves.

The use of social media in business appears to be universally accepted. Franchise lawyers must be knowledgeable about social media in order to advise franchisor clients on appropriate policies to apply to their franchisees. However, use of social media lawyers is a separate issue.

I recently searched "Lawyers" on Facebook pages and came up with more than 500 responses: some large firms, many smaller firms or sole practitioners, and a few associations of lawyers and lawyer consultants. However, most of the law firm pages were passively interactive websites, featuring occasional postings by the firm and responses to comments concerning those postings...

Consumers have an infinite number of ways and places to talk about your brand. Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, online blogs, podcasts and YouTube are fundamentally changing the way we work and interact with each other, with an increasing blurring of business, commercial, social and personal communications. As a result, these social media platforms can provide beneficial (and inexpensive) ways for franchisors and franchisees to market and promote their products and services.
While social media can provide great brand promotion opportunities, it also can be very dangerous. Social media is often viewed as a fast and informal means of communication, and given the fast-paced nature of social media, one can easily get caught up in the rapid back-and-forth responses inherent in the social media environment...