People have always complained about where they work, or used to work. But these days, it’s a lot easier for them to find an audience online — and cause serious damage.

How are disgruntled employees and former workers venting their frustrations? Tactics range from anonymous public ranting to calculated smear campaigns that can have serious financial consequences for the company.

On the less harmful side, Web services have sprung up that let folks tell the world what it’s like to work for your company. One example is Criticat.com, which tells users: “Your company reviews you annually but you never get to review your company. Not anymore.”

Another is JobVent.com, which lets people post comments under the broad categories of “I love my job” and “I hate my job.” Surprisingly, both sites don’t just contain angry rants — there’s plenty of praise out there, too. Still, the promise of letting employees — and especially ex-employees who left on bad terms — vent frustrations and tell others where they shouldn’t work might worry some HR pros.

Damaging reputations

Some ex-employees aren’t content to stop there. Other methods of so-called “cybersmear”: keeping blogs to air grievances, leaking confidential info to Web sites and sending e-mails to current employees bad-mouthing the company.

Despite the damage those things can cause, it’s often tough or impossible for companies to fight against them. In one recent court case, a VP was fired from a bank. On his way out, he took some private, sensitive company documents — and uploaded them to a public Web site.

The company sued to get the site shut down, but lost in court. The ex-exec was at fault for stealing the documents, but the court ruled silencing the site would violate the First Amendment. Also, it probably wouldn’t have done much good — once something goes online, it can be re-posted countless times as other people get a hold of it (Cite: Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd v. Wikileaks).

Preventing cybersmear

The best prevention, of course: Don’t have disgruntled employees. But HR pros know that’s impossible, so here are some other ways to help:

• Encourage managers to listen to complaints and seek out constructive criticism. Often, employees seek alternate ways to complain because they feel they have no other place to go.
• Write computer policies that prohibit employees from writing derogatory comments about the company and its employees.
• Consider having some or all employees sign confidentiality agreements that ban defamation, or include non-defamation provisions in separation agreements.