This evening I read a story about a Coke fan site in Denmark. Coke contacted them and insisted that they remove the name “Coke” from their URL (I guess this was necessary due to trademark law). But the big error that Coke made was to suggest that the fan site could not “link” to the Coke website without written permission, they insisted that without this permission (which had not been granted) they would need to remove the link.

Coke has since changed their position and apologized, but I think the damage was done. You can avoid Coke’s error by fostering a dialogue with customers that have suggestions or complaints. Instead of threatening to sue a potential “fan” invite him to your offices, listen to him and he will likely become even a bigger fan. This is the Web 2.0. Here is a link to the full story at Adland. Oh and Coke, if you are listening, please do not sue us for the links.