CLEVELAND (AP) — Businesses in Ohio and elsewhere are hiring
private investigators to pore through social media sites for
information about competitors and to watch for insider leaks and
evidence of employee misconduct, a newspaper reported.
Investigators
still use the old-fashioned methods — including taking secret photos
and searching through criminal files — but they are spending more time
combing through information that people put online about themselves,
according to The Plain Dealer of Cleveland (http://bit.ly/tNraoR).
"We
use social media primarily to research people," said northeast Ohio
native Kristin Wenske, now an investigative analyst in New York City
with the intelligence service Corporate Resolutions Inc. Wenske’s
clients are mostly private-equity firms and hedge funds wanting to check
out a management team before they invest thousands or millions of
dollars in a company.
More than 82 percent of companies use social
media to find out information about their competitors, according to a
Forrester Research survey last year of more than 150 companies.
The
Cleveland law office of Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur has hired
investigators to find out more about a company or its executives when
there were reasons to be "abundantly prudent," partner Michael Ellis
said.
"You try to gather as much information about the other side, good and bad, as you can. You want to
avoid surprises," he said.
Private
investigator Tom Pavlish of Cleveland has had assignments to check on
chief executives of companies targeted for acquisition.
In one
case, the CEO had a favorable public image, but research uncovered
sexual harassment accusations. Pavlish’s client decided not to keep the
executive after acquiring the company because of potential problems if
the manager repeated his conduct.
"Remarkably, I’ve developed negative information even from LinkedIn references," Pavlish said.

Paul
Baeppler, a police sergeant who founded Integrity Investigations in the
Cleveland suburb of Westlake, said Tweets, Facebook updates and Google
searches back up traditional detective work. Investigators can use the
social media sites "to read between the lines and see what’s not
actually there" and use that as a lead into something "more concrete,"
Baeppler said.
Wenske uses social media to look for illegal activity and undisclosed business interests, among other
things.
For
one client who needed help collecting money from a businessman who
pleaded poverty, Corporate Resolutions’ cyber-search showed the
businessman was hiding assets. The businessman’s son posted comments on
Myspace.com about hanging out at his dad’s place in the Caribbean, and
the asset search was extended to the Caribbean, Wenske said.
Silvania
Investigative Services in Columbus has used social media to check the
financial strength of people who wanted to invest in a client’s business
and to see who was responsible for giving business secrets to a
competitor. Owner Jim Silvania said he also was asked to investigate a
violent employee who turned out to be a member of the American Nazi
Party, posing in an Internet photo with a rifle in his arms and a
swastika.
"They provided extra security when they did the termination," Silvania said.
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Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.