Slashdot Mirror
How to Fight Name Scraping Scammers?
CurtMonash writes "I was ego-surfing the other day, and was surprised to discover that I was listed as a member of an on-line dating service. It turns out these scamsters generate web pages for lots of (FirstName, LastName) combos, each claiming that the named individual is a member of their service. I posted about this, and discovered other people were upset, at least one had lost interest in a guy because he appeared to be a member, and so on. I've since followed up with lessons learned, a big one being that everybody should have a visible web presence. But frankly, the ideas I've come up with for fighting this kind of reputation scam seem fairly weak. Do Slashdotters have any better ideas?"
I strongly disagree with that conclusion. There are already too many people with cringe-worthy web presences. Besides, most reasonable people know better than to believe everything they read.
Caveat Utilitor
What he's saying is that now some sleazy site might generate your name and if it's uncommon enough you will have web presence that you probably won't like.
File libel lawsuits.
Against who, exactly? The dating site, which is likely a scam front for stealing personal data from people who reply to the ad. The sites' host? Good luck there. Most decent hosts may take the site down, but there are few well-known hosting companies that would tell you, "Hey, they paid the bill, so they do whatever they want." The possible scammer behind the email? If he is using your identity to send out the emails to begin with, do you really think he used his real info to setup any of the the accounts. Then again, your response may have been based on your sig.
Yet, the World Wide Web is accessible as if it were a single source of information. That's what confuses people. All they seem to know is they open up "The Internet" on their PC by clicking the little blue "e".
My blog
It would be nice if the author explained why he thinks that everybody should have a web presence.
I suspect the idea is that if you maintain your own website, people who are Googling you at random will come across that first, and may not pay attention to the shady results at all. Your name is essentially your very own brand; might as well try to paint it in a decent light.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I was ego-surfing the other day, and was surprised to discover that I was listed as a member of the an on-line dating service.
I don't see anything on the jLove Curt Monash page that demonstrates that it's the guy who submitted this article. Surely there's more than one "Curt Monash" in the world?
If the site had scraped your Web site URL, e-mail address, or some other personal identifier that made the page look more "authentic", then there's a scam and a real privacy issue for us to be concerned about. If some computer is just putting together combinations of first and last names and building pages with no further personally identifiable information, that's spam for Google to worry about, not a scam or a privacy infringement for us to worry about.
at least one had lost interest in a guy because he appeared to be a member
The world is full of idiots. Just because someone's NAME (which is far from unique) is on a dating site, they lost interest? I'd say the guy had a lucky escape!
If there's any problem here, it's the Western naming convention that allows thousands of people to end up with the same name. Perhaps we should all become known by our e-mail addresses or IM screennames in the future to avoid this.
You could cross reference it with sex offenders in your area and let the local press know that the site is a notorious sex offender dating service with ties to your area. If they're claiming you're a member, they're probably claiming that any number of sex offenders, murderers, etc. are also members.
But when a website was launched to check how unique your name is [yournotme.com]
Is anybody else horrified by that domain name?
[/grammarnazi]
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
SPD - Suck Peter's Dick
(Not sorry, meant to be offensive.)
You are being nibbled on by a thousand ants. Shooting them off one at a time is probably not your best option.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
The US in general seems to have a big problem with mistaking names for identities, hence "no-fly lists" and other such idiocies. The solution here is to spread the meme that a name is not an identity, and you should make no assumptions if you see someone's name in an unfamiliar context.
I'm assuming that the point is to make sure that people who search for your name (from a perspective boss to a perspective boy/girlfriend) can find the truth. You can also add a note pointing out that a scummy site has falsely used your name.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
I had the same question. I've been actively trying to *REDUCE* my web presence, at least with my real name and email.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
In other words, assholes like you commit fraud, so everybody else should just live with it.
Besides, if you are the real Ehrich Weiss, even if your victim got you thrown in jail you would just break out.
You see, in order to get people to join a dating site, you have to fradulantly claim to have people who already joined the dating site to attract them; it's a catch-22 that we cannot avoid.
There, fixed that.
And I'll bet those profiles sound really good and new members wonder why they can't ever get hooked up with the fake profiles.
Smells like scam to me.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
If your girlfriend has an account at a dating service, you don't have a girlfriend, you have a fuckbuddy. Nothing wrong with that, just be sure to use a condom.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
What I think is a bigger concern is the number of employers who will now Google your name before hiring you. They could easily be fooled into thinking that these are legitimate search results.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Not necessarily true. Some people's names are quite unique, and may be trademarked successfully. The trick is that in order to prevent someone else from using your trademark, you will likely have to sue the potential offenders. Additionally, if someone else has trademarked your name, then you may need to challenge their mark in court.
Either way, lawyers win and someone loses. This is the American way, regrettably.
But you're defrauding the people who think that your dating site actually has real members.
It's nice to see how warped a crook's mind is.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Seems to me they did that guy a BIG favour. He dodged a seriously nasty bullet!
I run a dating site and profile generation is a necessity.
It's not a necessity.. it's a deceptive practice used by dickheads like yourself to dupe others into believing that you actually have a product to offer.
You see, in order to get people to join a dating site, you have to have people who already joined the dating site to attract them; it's a catch-22 that we cannot avoid.
I'd say that's complete bullshit. The number of legitimate users you have is an incentive for others to join. However, you could use other honest incentives to get new members while your userbase is still small.
your name isn't protected by any laws and can be used in works of fiction without your approval.
Just because something isn't protected by law, doesn't make you any less of a scumbag for doing it. Also, you're not advertising your product as a work of fiction, are you? So, libel would probably apply, but IANAL.
Just get over it cause I've got some guy using my real name in a gospel band and as sickening as I find that, I don't care as I have better things to worry about.
You poor, poor bastard. Sharing your name with some guy in a gospel band is the best you could come up with? You apparently aren't the brains of your little dating site operation, are ya?
If you believe in what you're selling, how about posting the domain name of your site?
I fail to see why him not charging makes any difference. He's lying for gain - the gain need not be monetary. It's a deceitful and (my opinion) disgusting business practice for one to engage in. Would it be worse if he charged people? Yes. Is it acceptable simply because it's free? No.
And who's to speak for his future intentions. Seems from his previous arguments (from his replies to other posters) his actions would be acceptable if he were no longer lying -- the ends would justify the means. He also seems to think I'm/we're the bad ones because there are worse evils in the world than him.
To clarify my stance: His original position was what he's doing isn't fraud (which later became qualified as not fraud by reason of lack of monetary gain). His actions are fraudulent regardless.
Sorry, man. I read all of his posts in here so far, and I understand what he's saying. But my god, I couldn't disagree with him more.
Making ad revenue - off people who were misled, in order to get them to the website - is fraud.
The perp isn't going to understand this because he doesn't want to understand. There's no persuading a brick wall. Let it go.
Well, how does that help?
Let's say I'm named Joe Random and even register www.joerandom.com, blog under that name on a site or two, I'm on Twitter under that name, on Slashdot, etc. Basically that I make myself very visible on the net. Ok.
Now suppose someone puts my name on a few dating sites, posts other crap in my name, maybe even make a few posts on usenet groups (which by now are fully searchable) in my name. Maybe send some spam in my name too. So someone googling for me, finds those too.
How's my already having a web presence prevent the damage there? How's my blogging, which would probably be along the same lines of "I'm a disillusioned programmer who's seen far too many incompetents" and "look how smart I can sound about <random topic>" as on Slashdot, going to prevent my SO getting horrified by finding my name (faked) on Adult Friend Finder or the like? Do you think she'll go, basically, "nah, he can't possibly be interested in blogging about PHBs _and_ in fucking other women, at the same time. No one has room in his head for both," or what? :P
Or maybe she'll think, "nah, if he were looking for other women, he'd put it on the front of his web page that he told me about, instead of going through those sites." :P
It seems to me that even if my existing web presence spells out exactly what I believe and do, on any given topic (which is already way too much effort, _and_ forfeiting any privacy I might enjoy), how many people do you think it would prevent from jumping to conclusions anyway, when such an account generated by someone else seems "proof" to the contrary? E.g., let's say I put in big bold letters on my web site that I'm strictly monogamous and love my SO. Then someone finds my name (faked) on Adult Friend Finder or whatnot. Want to bet that more than half will bet that the text on my official web site is just a bullshit smokescreen, and the faked one is the real me unveiled?
So it seems to me like having my own web presence, by itself, really wouldn't do that much.
Maybe if I spent time googling for myself, and posting a lengthy disclaimer for every such occurence... well, it might do a little, but at the expense of (A) more effort than I'm arsed to do, and (B) sounding like an insecure sack of complexes, who's probably having the ego-google on auto-refresh just to see what anyone might ever say about him. Plus, once a couple of people get the B impression, then they can DDOS me by just posting enough crap everywhere in my name to fill all my free time and then some.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.