Momentum Factor CEO Jonathan Gilliam will be joining DirectScale CEO Rodger Smith on a webinar to discuss the future of compliance in direct selling and compliance automation on Wednesday, September 8 at 2 pm Central.

In the past weeks we’ve all been flooded with emails and scary news, much of it causing angst and confusion. Yes, this is pretty awful. But we will get through it. We will be temporarily banged up, but we will definitely get through it, together.

In March of this year, a federal judge in Nevada accepted a $7.7 million dollar settlement offer from Xocai as the result of a class action lawsuit. Last November, the U.S. Fifth Circuit certified a class action suit against Stream, reversing a successful dismissal issued by a three-judge panel in October 2015. The Court’s apparent newfound willingness to consider racketeering charges against legitimate DS operations could open the door to significantly higher damages. This ruling came on the heels of two class action lawsuits filed in Arizona against Jeunesse, seeking to void their arbitration clause as “unconscionable.” Yet another lawsuit was filed in Utah against LifeVantage in October, 2016.

We had a great time at the DSA Annual this year in Phoenix. Met some great people, saw old friends and made new ones.

As technology has evolved over time, it has become increasingly easy for people to sell products online – including the unauthorized selling of a company’s goods.

Anyone who has worked in legal or compliance for a direct selling company understands the incredible challenges presented online.  As networkers increasingly use the Internet to promote their businesses, companies are at more risk every day from uncontrolled or unmonitored claims by the field, often to disastrous effect.

Many companies today struggle with their products being sold without permission on websites such eBay and Amazon. Direct selling companies are particularly vulnerable, from former distributors who post their products for sale, to larger aggregators who deliberately buy up product and offer them at a discount to prices the selling field can offer.

Our firm recently created an easy-to-use online tool to calculate the costs of negative search results.

Recently, Facebook announced it would be adding new “reaction buttons” to its commenting features. Though some jumped to the conclusion that this would be equivalent to a ‘dislike’ button, there was room left for interpretation about what exactly the buttons would do.

Our social and online reputation teams have noticed a recent rise in what we affectionately refer to here as "Insta-spam." That is, spam bots leaving fake comments from fake profiles, or hashtag hijackers posting dozens if not hundreds of often inappropriate photos, directly tagged to client brand names.