Everyone is familiar with the old phrase "shot yourself in the foot." This is all too common in business today whether we are talking about a web site or an airline.

The foot shot, as I like to call it, usually comes from good intentions. However, those intentions are usually internal. They are one of those things where you think something you do is for the good of the company when in the end, it turns out to be a PR mess and might involve a lot of lawyers. Eww.

A classic example of the foot shot was done by American Airlines. They have shot themselves in the foot by over-protecting their trademark. A few years ago, Americantook issue with flight simulators. Not the games themselvs, but the community that supports them. For all of you not crazy about Flight Simulator, planes can be added to the game. To do this, developers (who are usually guys in their basement in their spare time), create the own planes on the computer and then upload them to various web sites for people to download for free or for a little money. Part of this process involves  making a paint scheme or "Livery" for the aircraft. In the hunt for realism, people paint the planes like actual planes such as American Airlines paint scheme or United's paint scheme.

Well, despite the fact that people were just replicating planes for personal amusement, AA was not to happy. They sent cease and desist letters to developers and sites all over the net.  Eventually, all AA planes were no where to be found on the net. What this cause was a backlash in  the flight sim community. It also created less brand awareness. After all, flight sim guys need to take trips on commercial jets too. 

Next thing you know, when you go hunt for that 747 for flight sim, you can get in as United, TWA, all the others, buyt not AA. Suddenly, AA realized that they made a big mistake now allow developers to make their planes with certain guidelines. 

 The second strike against AA was the lawsuit against Google. It was over the use of Google Adwords and the fact that Google would allow people to buy "American Airlines" as a keyword for ads. AA didn't like this and sued. They settled out of court and the settlement is confidential, but I can tell you, try a search for American Airlines on Google, no ads on the side. 

Where this hurt AA is with brand awareness and sales. You do a search for AA you get AA, you do a search for United, you get United and a bunch of places offering cheap fares on United. Same with AirTran and any other carrier. AA made the mistake of forcing outlets of theirs from advertising on them thus lowering ticket sales. They have shot themselves in the foot.

  In E-commerce and other sites, many things done intentially have adverse affects. Not the least of which is a long and obtrusive checkout process. A study recently publishedshows that 87% of people have had bad online ordering experiences. Forcing a login, not tracking transactions, making it confusing, not displaying the rules, are all things that shoot you in the foot. Maybe the site looks better, but at what expense? Maybe the site collects better data, but at what expense?

 Other shots in the foot include allowing for a lower quality of service onlne because you can't get internal processes figured out. It's lowering user experience in exchange for more cross-selling, and it's never having stock because you never get enough to fulfill orders. There are hundreds of things you can do to get a nice foot shot. Remember, in the end it all comes down to doing what benifits the consumer, not your company.