E-reputation attorney
Your image deserves a defense to match.
INFLUXIO is a criminal and digital law firm specializing in e-reputation, based in Paris and Brussels, operating throughout France and Belgium. Our dual expertise in criminal law and digital law enables us to effectively defend our clients in both civil and criminal proceedings: defamation, denigration, cyberbullying, identity theft, online review management, and personal data protection.
served
rating
appearances
Alexandre Bigot-Joly
Partner
Music law, influence, media, communications & criminal law. Lecturer at CELSA, ISCOM and ESP.
Raphaël Molina
Partner
Intellectual property, business law, criminal law & influencer law. Contributor to the 2023 influencer legislation.
Maria Berrada
Partner
Intellectual property, AI, Web3, GDPR, digital criminal law & eSports. Legal counsel for the French Video Game Federation.
Our services
How we can help you.
Practical examples
De-indexing of 47 defamatory Google results
A business executive was the subject of slanderous articles published on disparagement sites. The de-indexing of 47 URLs was obtained from Google and 12 articles removed at the source.
Emergency procedure against revenge porn
A young woman was a victim of non-consensual distribution of intimate images across multiple platforms. Within 48 hours, a removal order was obtained through summary proceedings and a criminal complaint filed.
Client reviews
What our clients say about us.
“Great responsiveness from all team members, with solutions found quickly and efficiently.”
Christ C.
“We entrusted INFLUXIO with a complex case. Their technical expertise, strategic vision and the quality of their legal briefs were decisive.”
Mia-Line C.
Contact
Contact INFLUXIO.
Would you like to schedule a meeting or get a quote?
We respond within 24 hours.
Insights
Learn more about this area.
What is e-reputation?
E-reputation, or digital reputation, is the perceived image of a person, company, or product on the Internet. It is influenced by content and reviews available online. An e-reputation attorney helps protect this image by managing legal issues related to defamation, identity theft, image rights, denigration, cyberbullying, and personal data protection.
E-reputation encompasses the information, interactions, and comments circulating on social media, websites, forums, Google reviews, and other digital platforms. It has become a crucial issue in managing personal and professional reputation.
Who is concerned by e-reputation?
Individuals.
Individuals can see their e-reputation affected by attacks on their personal image and privacy (GDPR). Defamatory statements or harmful content can have significant consequences on their social and emotional life. Negative information or false accusations published online can affect their integrity, relationships, and even career prospects.
Businesses.
Businesses must manage their e-reputation to protect their brand image and respond to online reviews. A poor digital reputation can lead to loss of clients and business opportunities, or even de-banking when automated AML flagging affects banking relationships.
Companies must adopt strategies to monitor and manage product and service reviews to maintain a positive image and strengthen consumer trust.
Public figures.
Public figures must manage their online image to protect their careers and professional relationships. Attacks on their reputation can harm their popularity and credibility. Public figures must constantly monitor information circulating on the Internet and respond quickly to harmful content to preserve their image and reputation.
Areas of application in e-reputation.
Defamation.
Under French law (Article 29 of the Law of July 29, 1881), defamation is defined as the allegation or imputation of a fact that damages a person's honor or reputation, regardless of whether the statement is true or false. An e-reputation attorney can take legal action to remove defamatory content and obtain compensation.
Defamation can manifest as accusations, rumors, or statements spread on forums, blogs, or social media.
Cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying encompasses insults, threats, and abusive online behaviors aimed at intimidating or humiliating a person. Attorneys can use legal procedures to stop these behaviors and obtain the removal of harmful content. Victims of cyberbullying can suffer from stress, anxiety, and emotional distress, making rapid intervention essential to protect their well-being.
Identity theft.
Online identity theft, where someone impersonates another person, can cause serious damage. Attorneys can prosecute the perpetrators and obtain the removal of fake profiles. Identity theft can lead to serious legal, financial, and social consequences for victims.
Image rights.
Image rights concern the publication of photos or videos without the consent of the person concerned. Our specialized attorneys can help enforce this right and protect privacy through emergency injunctions. Image rights violations can occur on social media, photo-sharing sites, or online media.
Why use an e-reputation attorney?
Legal advice.
An e-reputation attorney offers advice to navigate the complexities of digital law, helping develop strategies for image protection and online content management. Legal counsel includes interpreting defamation laws, data protection, and image rights.
Protection of your rights.
Our specialized law firm protects and defends the rights of individuals and professionals regarding privacy and intellectual property, addressing e-reputation infringements. They intervene to defend clients' interests against defamatory attacks and privacy violations.
Problem identification and resolution.
They help identify online reputation problems, including the spread of insulting or defamatory content, and develop solutions to address them. Attorneys work with clients to analyze risks, assess the impact of harmful content, and propose crisis management strategies.
What is the role of an e-reputation attorney?
An e-reputation attorney can help you protect your legal rights in cases of online defamation, harmful content, or damage to your reputation on the Internet. They can advise you on legal actions to have harmful content removed and obtain compensation.
These specialized attorneys also intervene upstream, to monitor online reputation and anticipate threats, or downstream, when damage has already been done.
Contract drafting and negotiation.
They draft and negotiate contracts to protect online reputation, including specific clauses for managing reviews and published content. Contracts may include provisions on confidentiality, intellectual property, and data management.
Removal of harmful content.
Our attorneys specializing in e-reputation work to obtain the rapid removal of harmful or defamatory content, using appropriate legal procedures and communicating with distribution platforms.
Our Criminal Law Approach to E-reputation.
Defending e-reputation is largely a matter of criminal law. The most serious attacks — defamation, public insult, cyberbullying, identity theft, threats — constitute criminal offenses that require the intervention of a criminal lawyer.
INFLUXIO intervenes at all stages of criminal proceedings: filing complaints with civil party constitution, monitoring investigations, representation before the criminal court, and obtaining damages.
Our criminal law expertise allows us to master the procedural specificities of press law (short 3-month statute of limitations, formal requirements for prosecution acts, truth defense) and the Criminal Code (cyberbullying, identity theft). This dual competence in criminal law and digital law is essential for obtaining swift and effective results against online attacks.
Legal Tools for E-reputation Protection.
E-reputation protection relies on several complementary legal levers. Interim proceedings under the LCEN (as amended by Law No. 2024-449 of May 21, 2024 on securing and regulating the digital space (SREN Law)) allow for the emergency removal of manifestly unlawful content from hosts and internet service providers.
The right to de-referencing, established by the CJEU Google Spain ruling of May 13, 2014 (C-131/12) and codified in Article 17 of the GDPR, allows requests to search engines for the removal of obsolete, inaccurate, or privacy-infringing results. The CJEU clarified the limits of this right in its judgment of 24 September 2019 (Google LLC v.
CNIL, Case C-507/17), ruling that de-referencing is not required on a worldwide basis but only in the versions of the search engine corresponding to Member States.
The host notification procedure (LCEN and DSA, Regulation EU 2022/2065) requires precise formalities: identification of the notifying party, description of the disputed content, legal basis for the request, and a copy of the notification sent to the author.
The identification request (Article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure) allows, by court order, platforms and internet service providers to be compelled to disclose the identification data of the author of illicit content.
The GDPR strengthens these tools through the right to object (Article 21) and the right to erasure (Article 17), enabling individuals to request the deletion of personal data concerning them when processing is no longer necessary or was carried out unlawfully.
These same GDPR rights can also be used to obtain the removal of records from banking watchlists such as World-Check or Dow Jones.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
Google can be contacted with appropriate legal grounds. In case of refusal, the court can be petitioned for a removal order.
Yes, through legal proceedings, platforms and internet service providers can be compelled to disclose the identity of the author of illicit content.
The timeline varies by case. An amicable request to Google typically takes 2 to 4 weeks. In case of judicial recourse, interim proceedings can be resolved within a few weeks to a few months.
The right to de-referencing, established by the CJEU judgment of 13 May 2014 (Google Spain, Case C-131/12) and codified in Article 17 of the GDPR, allows individuals to request a search engine to remove links to pages containing inadequate, irrelevant, or excessive information. The request is made directly to Google via a dedicated form.
In case of refusal, an appeal to the CNIL or to the interim relief judge is possible.
The right to be forgotten is a general concept that aims to allow a person to no longer be associated with past events. The right to de-referencing is its concrete application in the digital world: it allows the removal of links from search engine results, without the source content necessarily being deleted. The CJEU clarified in its judgment of 24 September 2019 (Google v.
CNIL, Case C-507/17) that this right does not have worldwide scope.
Any person named or designated in an online communication service has a right of reply, pursuant to Article 6 IV of the Law of 21 June 2004 (LCEN). The request must be sent to the publication director within three months of the content being posted online. The reply, limited to the length of the message it responds to, must be published within three days.
Defamation (Article 29 of the Law of July 29, 1881) targets a person's honor, with a 3-month statute of limitations. Denigration (Article 1240 of the Civil Code) targets a competitor's products or services, with a 5-year statute of limitations. The competent courts and burden of proof rules also differ.
Time limits vary by legal qualification: 3 months for ordinary defamation and insult (Article 65 of the 1881 Law). This period is extended to one year when the defamation or insult is discriminatory in nature (art. 65-3 of the 1881 Act), 5 years for denigration and privacy violations (Article 2224 of the Civil Code), and no fixed deadline for a GDPR erasure request (Article 17).
Related publications
