Defending Your Brand in 2026: A Practical Guide to Fighting Misappropriation

This is part of an ongoing series by Dave Byrne, TrustRaise founder and BSI Advisory Board Member, about where we find the practice of brand safety & suitability in 2026. You can find all the articles here.

In my previous article, I showed you how scammers weaponize circular legitimacy, post-purchase hijacking, and exclusivity exploitation to turn your brand into their most effective tool. Now comes the harder question: how do we stop this before it damages trust, revenue, and community? In this article, I’ll walk through some of the most critical strategies, and give you an actionable checklist of things you can do today to protect your brand from misappropriation.

Brand Misinformation vs. Brand Misappropriation

If you're going to fight brand misappropriation, you need to know what you're fighting. I have seen too many advertisers mistake brand misinformation and misappropriation. The difference matters more than most people realize, and getting it wrong means your reports go nowhere.

Brand misappropriation is when someone impersonates your brand to scam or defraud users: fake websites that mimic yours, fraudulent customer service accounts intercepting your customers, malicious links disguised as legitimate offers, or deepfake recruitment scams using your executives' likenesses (all discussed in my first article). Brand misinformation, on the other hand, is when someone makes false claims about your brand: fabricated reviews, shutdown rumors, exaggerated harm allegations.

The distinction matters because brand misappropriation violates platform policies regarding scams, fraud & impersonation and should be actioned when reported on through the correct channels. Meanwhile brand misinformation typically doesn't violate rules and may not be actioned. As such, from here on out I will be speaking specifically about brand misappropriation.

First- and Third-Party Tools to Prevent Misappropriation

Platforms are tackling Brand Misappropriation and there are tools to protect your brand, but you need to know exactly how they work and where the gaps are. Meta's Brand Rights Protection Manager was significantly enhanced in 2025, adding an "Other" category for deceptive practices that exploit brand names without touching protected assets; that closes a gap that scammers have been exploiting for years. Google suspended over 700,000 scam advertiser accounts in 2024 and claims a 90% drop in deepfake ad reports. They've shifted toward proactive AI enforcement, TikTok's automated enforcement now catches 85% of policy violations. X has impersonation reporting that distinguishes between impersonation and trademark violations. Third-party services like Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, and Zefr fill some gaps. The tools exist, but they're not standardized, and you need to know the exact reporting path for every platform where your brand appears.

The real problem is not platform capability, it's speed. Scammers adapt their tactics in hours, while platform enforcement can lag days behind. This means fraudulent ads still run for days and enforcement challenges persist around commercial scams. By the time you see a scam through user reports or brand monitoring, damage is already being done. I have watched brands focus all their attention on their primary website while scammers quietly built entire fake ecosystems across secondary channels; for example, cloned Instagram accounts, spoofed customer service pages,, fake LinkedIn profiles recruiting on behalf of the company. Every touchpoint where your brand interacts with customers is a surface area scammers will exploit. That means paid ads, owned social, email campaigns, marketplaces, influencer channels, customer service touchpoints, employee profiles. All of it.

Tools like Spikerz are closing this gap by monitoring these surfaces at scale and actioning faster than manual processes; automating impersonator detection and takedown across social platforms to catch fake accounts before they build credibility. That speed matters because cybercriminals are using automated impersonation kits, AI-written content, and social engineering at unprecedented scale.

Nearly 83% of scam emails now use AI language models, and that's just one vector. You need monitoring that matches that automation: AI-powered tools scanning for spoofed domains, cloned accounts, unauthorized use of visual assets, and content that mimics your brand's tone and style. But fighting AI with AI is only one piece of the solution.

You also need to think about severity. Not all misappropriation requires the same response speed. Sophisticated brands build systems that recognize when product launches or high-profile campaigns get targeted and escalate immediately. These are the moments where billions in losses happen. Impersonation scams alone cost consumers nearly $3 billion in 2024. The gap between detecting a threat and stopping it is where your brand's trust gets converted into a scammer's payday.

Proactive Communication and Incident Response

Your customers need to know what's real and what's not, and that means clear, consistent communication at every touchpoint. Simple warnings like "We will never call asking for your credit card information" work when you integrate them into transaction flows, confirmation emails, and landing pages. Clear communication about verification helps maintain trust rather than erodes it. Make verification easy: a dedicated page listing all official channels, verification badges unique to your communications, a simple way for customers to report suspicious messages, and regular reminders during high-risk periods like product launches or holiday shopping. Educate proactively, not reactively. Do not wait until they are scammed to tell them how to spot fakes. By then, it is too late and they are blaming you.

Even with proactive measures, some customers will still fall victim. The way you respond makes the difference between a single incident and long-term reputational harm. Focus on three principles:

• Empathy first. Validate the customer's experience without admitting liability. They trusted your brand, and that trust was weaponized against them. That emotional reality matters more than legal exposure in this moment.
• Visible resistance. Demonstrate action against the scammer. Maintain a rapid response team to coordinate takedowns and communicate progress to affected users. Show you're fighting for them, not just protecting yourself.
• Re-onboarding. Treat victims like new customers. Re-educate them on legitimate channels, provide reassurance on safety measures, and offer a meaningful reason to stay. The goal is rebuilding the trust that was broken.

From an operational standpoint, there are additional steps every brand safety lead should consider:

• Escalation protocols. Define clear internal triggers for executive involvement when high-value customers or high-profile campaigns are targeted. A scam targeting your entire customer base via fake customer service messages requires immediate C-suite awareness. Rapid, centralized decision-making reduces confusion and speeds response.
• Cross-functional coordination. Brand protection is not just a marketing problem or a legal problem or a security problem. It requires coordination across all three, plus customer service, communications, and executive leadership. Build the relationships and processes now, not during a crisis.
• Metrics that matter. Track takedown speed, detection lag time, customer impact, and recovery rates. The goal is not just to remove fraudulent content but to minimize the window of exposure and the number of affected customers. Measure what you manage.

Brand misappropriation in 2026 is not a problem you solve once. The tools exist. The platforms provide reporting mechanisms. The monitoring technology has matured. What separates brands that maintain trust from those that lose it is the speed and effectiveness of their response.

Scammers are already spending your trust. Every fake customer service message, every spoofed delivery notification, every fraudulent "exclusive offer" converts years of brand investment into leverage they use against your customers. The only question is whether you're tracking the balance before it runs out. Detection, response, and recovery are not separate initiatives. They are one continuous operation, and in 2026, it needs to run faster than the scams targeting you.

Your 2026 Brand Misappropriation Protection Checklist

Use this as a starting point for your next team meeting or quarterly review:

Detection & Monitoring

• Map every customer touchpoint where your brand appears (paid, owned, earned, employee channels)
• Deploy monitoring for spoofed domains, cloned accounts, and unauthorized use of brand assets
• Set severity-based alert thresholds (high-value segments, product launches, campaigns)
• Monitor for the 2026 attack patterns: circular legitimacy, post-purchase hijacking, exclusivity exploitation, recruitment scams

Platform Infrastructure

• Register with Meta's Brand Rights Protection Manager
• Document X/Twitter impersonation reporting process
• Set up TikTok Safety Suite (if advertising on platform)
• Complete Google/YouTube trademark authorization
• Bookmark reporting forms for every platform you use

Customer Communication

• Create clear guidance on how customers verify they're interacting with your real brand
• Add fraud warnings to transaction flows, confirmation emails, and landing pages
• Build a dedicated page listing all official channels and common scam tactics
• Integrate simple reminders: "We will never ask for X via Y channel"
• Provide an easy way for customers to report suspicious messages

Response Protocols

• Define escalation triggers for executive involvement
• Build a rapid response team or "war room" process for coordinated takedowns
• Create pre-approved templates for platform reports and customer communications
• Develop victim response framework: empathy first, visible resistance, re-onboarding
• Establish cross-functional coordination (legal, security, marketing, customer service, comms)

Operational Readiness

• Run scenario-based drills with realistic attack simulations
• Test detection-to-takedown speed and identify gaps
• Track metrics: takedown speed, detection lag, customer impact, recovery rates
• Review and update playbooks quarterly based on emerging attack patterns

If you can check most of these boxes, you're ahead of the curve. If you can't, you know where to start.