Wikipedia Tells PR Agencies To Get Lost

PR Week reports that the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has warned PR agencies against writing about companies they represent in the popular online encyclopaedia. Encyclopedia entries on individuals and organizations the site are not supposed to be written by those individuals or organizations.

There seems to be some sort of desperation going on where brands make a scramble to try to control everything that’s said about them online. Maybe this has been advised by the old-school PR agencies. It’s a growing concern though. In two trends videos made for PSFK in December 06, Richard Anson from Reevo talks about consumer mistrust of online comments found in retail sites like Amazon – and Paul Isakson calls for honesty.

It would be great to see brands just concentrating on building great stuff instead of controlling what people say when they say brands make bad stuff. Here’s an idea: why doesn’t your company declare that says it never manipulates consumer comments online, nor write statements and reviews as if it were a customer. Would be a first, maybe…