Defamation of character is a term that is used to describe when false statement is written or spoken about an individual with the intent of harming or slandering their reputation. Unfortunately, defamation of character claims are extremely difficult to be proven in the court of law despite the fact that they are The Law Dictionary Featuring Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary 2nd Ed.
McDonald's is a publicly-traded corporation, but most of its retail branches are not owned or operated by the company itself. Instead, they are owned by independent business owners through franchise agreements.
That said, I have looked some third-party investment analysis of the McDonald's Corporation and the numbers seem to jive with what poster TheseSchnozberries already mentioned. The stores which are owned by the McDonald's Corporation itself (rather than a franchisee) appear to have a yearly profit margin somewhere in the range of 4%-6%. Personally, I think a more interesting question is this: On average how many years does it take before a franchisee sees a positive return on their initial investment?