A new service from company eWatch is helping corporates to ‘reeducate’ dissenting consumers.The service, Cybersleuth, monitors what people do or say on the Web and attempts to repair damage done to the corporate image -  through, for example, posts made by aggressively pissed off customers who vent their spleen in chat rooms and on web pages. ‘We can neutralize the information appearing online,’ say eWatch, ‘through a little info-cleansing, identifying the perpetrators behind uncomplimentary postings and rogue Web sites and removing offending messages from where they appear in cyberspace.‘Tracking  anticorporate activists is also part of the service, says eWatch National Product Manager Ted Skinner. It’s done through ‘a variety of methods, such as following leads found in postings and Web sites, working with ISPs, involving law enforcement, conducting virtual stings and other tactics,’ Skinner says. ‘We can post back to the message boards where original postings appeared to give our side of the story, provide clarification, or debunk it, and e-mail directly those we think were affected by the incident.’ Skinner says Northwest Airlines used his service earlier this year to help it track down the identities of employees who organized a ‘sick-out’ that nearly halted flights over the last Christmas holiday. The company has since fired those employees, and a court has upheld the legality of that action. The ruling is under appeal. Northwest is now using eWatch to help it target its most disgruntled passengers- for ‘reeducation’, presumably.eWatch’s Cybersleuth will identify, for a fee, the entity or entities behind the screen names involved in dissing your company. For  $4,995 per screen name they will identify a person or group behind a screen name that has targeted a particular company or organization within 7 to 10 days. And  for an extra $1,995 per screen name, eWatch says it can give a company results within 48 hours. Companies that use eWatch ‘will receive a dossier detailing all information gathered about the subject during the inquiry,’ Skinner says.According to Skinner, many companies like the way the Net can bring them closer to consumers for marketing purposes. But when it comes to dissatisfied consumers, the Net can sometimes bring them a little too close for comfort.  Thank heaven we’ve people like eWatch around to help us keep them from expressing themselves…Repress yourself, don’t express yourself: www.ewatch.com