Published in The Australian, June 6 2002

IN 1976, McDonald's in Atlanta was plagued with a rumour that it was grinding worms into its hamburgers.

Company management advised caution, but local franchisees, whose sales were declining, took matters into their own hands and held a press conference to deny the worm story. Far from quietening the gossip, their action ensured that what had previously been a local problem became an international one, as media worldwide swooped on the story.

What was an unusual turn of events in 1976 is a daily issue today. The problem of rumour-mongering has taken on a new dimension online, as email, websites and chat rooms make it increasingly easy for reputations to be trashed on a global basis. They also pose a challenge for PR companies, which sell their services partly on the basis that they can minimise the impact of damaging stories.

The fact that some rumours are patently stupid appears to be no defence against their rapid spread. In 2000, a wild tale circulated that KFC had shortened its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because its practice of using "genetically manipulated organisms ... kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure" meant that it couldn't describe its product as "chicken".

How can a business whose traditional work involves summarising conventional media mentions keep track of such rumours? Sophisticated search engines provide a partial solution by identifying websites that have started or repeated rumours, but these rarely feature recent material.

Working out which mentions are relevant can be difficult. "One of the issues with current web trawling systems is that they focus on the brand mention," says Raj Seth, Asia Pacific netcoms director for international PR firm Hill & Knowlton. "We want to focus on the reputation aspect." Hill & Knowlton has built its own software for tracking and managing brand reputations online, Radar, which is due to be introduced into its local offices later this year.

However, even sophisticated tracking mechanisms aren't able to measure email, one of the most common sources of brand damage. Ironically, one of the most pervasive of all spurious emails is one claiming that forwarding a message to help test email tracking systems will result in a free gift.

Urban legend site Snopes has identified 24 different companies affected by this hoax, including Microsoft, Disney, IBM and Nike, and new versions continue to appear. Tracking systems are equally helpless in the face of chat rooms and instant messaging software.

Finding the mentions is also only half the battle, since refuting the rumour can actually make more people aware of it. The most common response for most firms is to post a denial on their official website, which at least ensures curious consumers can get both sides of the story. KFC took this approach at the time of the "mutant chickens" case.

One important lesson is that, despite the potential damage caused by such rumours, having a sense of humour may be important in countering them. McDonald's credits the eventual quelling of the worm rumour to a quip made by founder Ray Kroc: "We couldn't afford to grind worms into our meat. Hamburger costs a dollar and a half a pound, and night crawlers cost $6."