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Defending Self In a Case of On-Line Identity Theft?
SoccerDad41 writes "I am a systems administrator for an Indiana-based bricks-n-clicks retailer currently suspended because an unscrupulous typosquatter stole my name and registration information for his/her fraudulent domain registration. My company hired a third party service to protect their trademark by identifying and terminating infringing web sites. The third party identified a domain name, performed a WhoIs lookup & issued a complaint in compliance within ICANN's rules. This was presumably all reported back to our Legal department and it was noticed that the name on the domain registration matched mine. I have a locally uncommon ethnic last name so an immediate connection to me was made & although I protested my absolute innocence in the matter, I have been suspended on grounds of violating non-compete policies pending proof that it isn't me. The fraudulent domain registration was made with a different registrar (let's call them Registrar B) than the one my company uses (let's call them Registrar A). The public parts of the registration information at Registrar B match pretty exactly those of my legitimate domain registrations at Registrar A, including Registrar A's mailing address and phone number. The only things left out in the mailing address are the reference to a domain name and ATTN: Registrar A. Of course the anonymized email address differs as well. Surely I'm not the first in the Slashdot community to find myself in this situation. I'd like to avoid incurring the cost of a lawyer but I am intent on maintaining my good name and continued employment. What are my rights and responsibilities in this matter? What is my best course of action? How did you resolve this issue? How can I prove it's not me?"
Something like: "I am a systems administrator for an Indiana-based....... What is my best course of action? How did you resolve this issue? How can I prove it's not me?"; Just cut and paste the question above; substitute real names and feed it to the lawyer.
Being serious; they need to prove it was you. Once you've identified a good lawyer to handle it, enjoy a free holiday as long as you possibly can; simply deny any connection but try to avoid helping them in any way.
The type of lawyer you want to see, incidentally, is "effective and brutal libel".
It's a bit late, now you've posted it on slashdot, I hope you lied about the details, but if you had any sense you would have started acting terribly emotionally damaged. Fake a suicide attempt. Find a friendly doctor to certify you depressed. Disappear into the wilderness on camping expeditions (so that you can have fun in an environment where it will be difficult to trace you) etc. etc.
Now that you have posted this on slashdot, probably your lawyer will advise you to prostrate yourself before the HR department; apoloigise for screwing up an internal investigation and offer to pay the company for the damage you've done. If he does that then just do what he says. He clearly knows beter than you do.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Mod parent up.
Though, it seems like sensible advice for a European situation where you have some chance of justice. If you are in the UK it will be much cheaper to start with your local Citizens advice bureau and then work onto lawyers when you know more.
Indiana, it seems, is an at will state so basically you don't get anything back for being fired as such. The only thing you can sue about is if they did something wrong to you whist firing you. For full details you will, indeed, want to consult an "experienced employment specialist" but a little reading on wikipedia will help you realise that posting to slashdot may not be sufficient to rescue you.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();