This website has been a heaven-sent tool that I use several times a year. Best part about it is that it is FREE! Copyscape.com http://www.copyscape.com/ allows you to type in your company's domain name and search the internet for companies or websites that have plagiarized your work or written information on your website.
Three years ago, I discovered three companies that had plagiarized my website. The first was a planner in Florida whose (as I would later discover after calling her) intern had copied my fine-tuned apprenticeship word-for-word and claimed it as her own. The second was a planner in my own backyard who had copied my wedding planning tips page. Luckily, a simple phone call eliminated the problem.
The third culprit, however, was a whole other beast. Ironically, it was a new wedding planner in Dayton, Ohio. (For the record, she is no longer in business.) This company not only stole word-for-word copy from seven pages of my website, but she also copied photos of weddings I'd done without permission from the photographers. (All of the photographers whose work is on our website are weddings we have done with them and we give them photo credit by putting a link with their company's name on it below the photo.) To top it off, she took four of the testimonials from my clients, substituted her name for mine, and posted them as her own. Unluckily for her, one of the client testimonials was from one of the partners in Dayton's largest law firm. One cease and desist letter later, the guilty website was taken down.
You are your company's best protector -- do just that! http://www.copyscape.com/
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