Given how easy it was to claim the group's page -- I entered my email address and got an email response with no serious identification effort - I think it is very wise for anyone in any organization that believes it does not have a page to check. Someone may be providing information to the public in your name. If fact, doing a search of pages just now, I found five that refer to the same software company. Two were clearly not created by the company, but were created in its name by individuals. One was created by the company, although certainly has not been used much. And two were created by Facebook for the same company. This apparently stems from the fact that the company had two different addresses in  the same town. So there are pages with a slight variation on the company name. But they are for the same company.

With another software company, there are three pages. One is obviously not official, but still has 156 "likes "and a second links to a Wikipedia page to describe what the vendor does. It has 590 "likes". The other has more than 5,000.

And let's go to accounting firms. A search for a page for one firm brought up about 25 separate ones. This is a Top 20 accounting firm and it appears that about 15 of the pages (who wants to open them all?) were created by Facebook for each of the firm's offices. The same was true for a Top 10 firm and I suspect these are not isolated instances. If you are doing a quick search, which do you "like"? Now with most of the nonofficial pages, there are almost no posts. Still, it's not hard to envision some things going on that the companies mike not like and at the very least these scatter the attention a company would like to get.

Want to ignore this issue? When I clamed my pool's page, I realize anyone could have done so .You might find someone else owns a page in your name. Maybe it's me.

Bob Scott

• Email

Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind