You would think that the precedent of, “how lawyers sending letters to bloggers without grounds, spins crisis out of control,” would be mainline reading in law schools and professional journals these days. But, unfortunately for LendingTree they are retracing notoriously disastrous ground.

When I was tipped off about the LendingTree security breach and went to research my initial coverage there were only about 3 Google search results for the incident including the original LendingTree tip. But, then they made a wrong turn in crisis online reputation management.

In my mind, LendingTree did a great job managing the early crisis:

• They immediately notified and educated potentially effected customers.
• They publicly posted this letter to customers
• They posted a very detailed Frequently Asked Questions about the incident

These initial steps insured the public could consult the facts, not the Web spinAs a result, the early coverage was light and generally low key. The majority of the news focused on their prompt notification of customers and their legal actions to hold the collaborating thieves in the breach accountable. Both, good themes and still the mainline news coverage of LendingTree. Even the blog coverage of LendingTree was fairly benign and positive.

But, yesterday lawyers thought it prudent to send letters to bloggers, which is guaranteed to spin this fading incident into another, more negative direction.

It starts with (most likely) a disgruntled former LendingTree employee going on a posting spree on blogs covering the LendingTree incident–to get his retribution on LendingTree in a weak, public moment. Then, LendingTree counsel, in their diligent following of the online discussion finds these comments and decides to leap into action to defend the brand–”let’s send a letter and get the bad stuff erased.”

In doing so, they violated the number one, tried and true, mantra of Internet discourse and  conversation–Don’t Feed the Trolls!

Now, LendingTree is left with a swelling and festering negative online conversation driven by “Seniorexe.”

My recommendation? Send a brief note to all bloggers you sent your first request to and thank them for their consideration of your request and wish them the best in their future online journalistic endeavors. Then read the information below.

Required reading for law students and practicing attorney–participating or trying to control online market conversations:

• Don’t Feed the Trolls!
  
• The quintessential Digg case study. Digg v. HD DVD hack.
• Cease & Desist Letters drive tons of free Web traffic to previously small audiences
• How Not to handle online reputation management in a crisis

Any other suggestions for LendingTree?