Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Undoing an Internet Smear Campaign?
An anonymous reader writes "My fiancee is a professional writer. She has a great industry reputation and everyone that knows her loves her. But her ex-husband has maintained a number of websites in her name (literally, the URL is her name) that are filled with insane ravings and defamatory content. Have you ever had to deal with an internet smear campaign? The results float to the top of every Google or Bing search of her name. He currently lives abroad and cannot be served with legal papers. His websites are hosted overseas as well, and do not respond to conventional letters or petitions. Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either, and it's still difficult to prove any real 'damages' are done by it. Still, we'd like to see them go away. I'm turning to the best community of geeks in the world: how do I deal with this given the limited options at my disposal?"
SEO
boom goes the dynamite....
Put up your own website... fill it with good content... get links?
What Happens On The Internet, Stays On The Internet.
"Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either, and it's still difficult to prove any real 'damages' are done by it. Still, we'd like to see them go away."
Simple. Form a Corporation using the name. Instant win.
Or counter-smear.
DDOS
Copyright the name, contact ICANN and have the domains yanked.
These guys provide a service to clean up your reputation. They may have some good options.
DMCA
... is the legal term you're looking for.
A trademark doesn't have to be registered. If she's been writing under her own name for years, then her name is a valuable piece of intellectual property and it's entitled to exactly the same protections as the name of 'Mickey Mouse'.
Of course, that means you need to act quickly before the trademark is considered to be officially diluted or worthless.
IANAL, TINLA etc.
Trademark her name and submit an ownership transfer appeal to the domain authority.
And obviously neither is the OP: "He currently lives abroad and cannot be served with legal papers. His websites are hosted overseas as well, and do not respond to conventional letters or petitions. Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either,
For God's sake begin by hiring someone who actually knows about this stuff instead of relying on what you learned from daytime TV.
Three Squirrels
This isn't Reddit, man.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must shut down these websites!
Everything is better with chainsaws.
That's what matters. Maybe she can trademark her name and seize the domain as being confusingly similar, but it's still throwing time and attention at somebody who clearly craves it, for dubious gain.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Have her legally change her name, unless it's part of her branding/ reputation then it should speak above and louder than the ex's libels. It's "easy" in comparison to your international feud. Of course, she'd still have to change her driver's license, bills, etc, and have a public notice about such change. So what I would do is pick a common name and attach an alias afterwards. It's all legal AFAIK, but IANAL.
That link is about folks who actually did those things and want to bury things that they think a future employer may find objectionable.
In this case, someone is making shit up and defaming someone.
The person asking this needs to have his wife sue. Do not pass go. Go directly to lawyer.
ask for a hacker to deface his misleading sites.... post urls on pastebin. and then just ask to the "Dark side".... rofl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting
http://blogs.lawyers.com/2012/11/internet-defamation-cybersquatting/
http://www.traverselegal.com/internet-defamation/defamation/what-is-a-defamation-of-character-assessment/#more-129
I'm sure that many laywers will do this for you for $$$, but it may also be possible to have the victim file under ACPA to force the domain names to be given to them
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property00/domain/legislation.html
but that may only apply to trademark owners and not defamation victims.
-I'm just sayin'
If he believes he's being righteous, you'll never stop him. This is a risk when you choose to interact with people. If he is just being a cock, then continually send him the same letter over and over explaining why. Eventually he'll realise it will be obvious to future partners that he is a cock and stop being a cock. If this is a reaction to pain he will stop it when the pain stops, which it might never do. People are complicated, there is no way to deterministically prevent them trying to attach bad things to another person's name.
Many countries like England have extremely strong libel laws. She should hire an english attorney and have him prosecuted in the UK. Its pretty much irrelevant to the UK system where the harm took place.
Check the WHOIS information for the domains. If there is any missing information at all or if the phone numbers or email addresses don't work, you can file a report with ICANN. I have found that many times people will not reply to the complaint which means the domains are shut down within a few weeks.
Maybe she should pick a new name, possibly a business name to work through and notify her current circle of contacts of the change.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This sounds like a tactic to get you to set a date for the wedding... Being a woman, she would have already through of this as the easy out that once she get's married she'll likely change her last name which would help greatly with this issue. Given you haven't brought that up in your post, I'm guessing she hasn't mentioned it to you. This means that your wedding isn't any time in the near future or a date hasn't been set at all. So, I'm guessing you've proposed at some point but aren't commited enough to tie the knot. Once a big deal has been made of this situation, she will suddenly come up with the 'idea' that getting married will solve things, and the sooner the better.
I'm telling you this because you also need to keep an eye on things in the contraceptive department because if this little ruse doesn't work to get you to hitched, that will be next on the list.
Look, I know a lot of people here claim to know things they don't, but I am posting as Annonymous Coward because I don't have a slashdot account so you can trust that I know a lot more about women than most people her. Stay strong my brother.
Lawyers are much better than slashdot at telling you what your legal options might be.
Seriously, where do you get this stuff? There's not a lot of obvious overlap between libel law and free speech. At least in the US, the issues are whether material is (1) defamatory and (2) untrue. So far as I know, that's it; if the material's untrue, then saying false things about people is not generally regarded as "free speech". (Note: "untrue" means "provable as a matter of fact to be untrue", not just "I don't think it's true".)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Freedom of speech in the US seems to be continually misunderstood - it means you have the freedom to talk smack about the Government and they won't seek repercussions. No matter what you think about the state of the country, at least it's safer to criticize the Administration in the US than it would be in, say, Iran or North Korea or even China. And that's all because of freedom of speech.
This does NOT apply one bit to citizens having a go at one another, and if it can be shows that it's truly smear and there's nothing tangible to the accusations, then it can most definitely be treated as libelous and freedom of speech is irrelevant here. You can't just say whatever you like without there being consequences, particularly if you lie.
Actually, the submitter didn't say it was true. The submitter didn't even say it was not libel. The submitter said he didn't think a court would find it to be libel, based on "free speech rights".
This does not argue that the submitter has a nuanced-enough understanding of the law to justify trying to draw specific conclusions about what the facts are from his speculations as to what a court would rule.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
How many times have I read an opinion about an injustice on /. only to find out later it wasn't such an injustice? I notice OP didn't provide any URLs to let people make up their own minds.
I think you answered your own post. You said the material is not libelous -- ie: it's true.
Not libelous and false are not two sides of the same coin. You can't infer one from something not being the other. Example: site gets opened with the name of someone in the URL, and the site owner than proceeds to post timecube and NAMBLA articles. Not libel, but not fun either. Or, just reposts random porn to that site. Or of frat parties. Or posts about how great coke and pot are.
There are great ways to ruin reputations, none of which involve explicit falsehoods. Lets hope you never have to find out first-hand.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's either true or not. If it's not true, then it's libel. If it is true, then it is not libel, and is protected under the 1st amendment. There is none of this, "true but also libelous" bullshit you've made up. (At least not in the US where the poster is clearly from.)
Set up some zombies to DDOS him until he goes away.
You should also talk to a lawyer. Making assumptions about what the law will and won't say when there isn't a lawyer involved is prone to failure.
I think you have those two steps the wrong way round.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
You can easily get the domain name that matches her name.
1. Have her trademark it
2. File a UDRP
For the rest, SEO.
BTW, you are not the crazy ex trying to figure out how she can take away your cyber-stalking, right?
I'm pretty sure you meant to post this on /b/
All of your examples would qualify as libel. You are confusing truth with the legality of the material. If I say you're a huge slut, and you're not, that's libel. But there is nothing illegal about it. You are free to be a slut, if that's what you want to be.
Why turn to us geeks? So that some of us could arrange somehow to get his websites down? I'd rather turn to a PR community if I were you, or a lawyer community (perhaps lawyers in the country of residence of the ex-husband)
There are at least 4 types of speech which are not protected by first amendment (though other laws may allow it, it's not free speech if it's):
1. libel and slander
2. hate speech (including speech which incites a riot)
3. fighting words
4. student speech
So, you may still have a case if it can be considered Libelous.
If nothing can be done to take down those websites create another one, or a page on her professional site, explaining the situation in detail, linking to the offending sites to allow people to see for herself, and add the progress of handling it. I have seen a few sites in the past of people defending themselfves against libel that impressed me because they exposed the lies in a reasonal way, and gave the impression the one defending him- or herself was not only on top of but above the situation, the defence was much more credible than the libel just by being factual and balanced, and not coming across as angry or vengeful.
Ah, I see your mistake. You think that from IF A THEN B follows If B THEN A. Rookie logic mistake. Not to mention that something can be damaging to a reputation without being strictly false, through merely presenting an unsavory association that is difficult to prove to be incorrect.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This website is designed specifically for this, and is free.
http://brandyourself.com/
Using Bing, Google etc., there are about eight web pages or so that I would not want out there. Oddly enough, the origin of those web pages were back in 1989 when I gave my name and phone # to some local BBSs. BBSs and IRC channels I stopped talking on about 17 years ago. For whatever reasons, these things float back up. They're not all bad, I'd just rather they not be around.
A solution - on Google a search for my name, first page is my Github, my Twitter, my Stack Overflow, my Facebook (which is fairly employer-scrubbed). Also some other people with my name, ancestral records of people with the same name etc. The following pages are more of the same - me talking on technical mailing lists etc.
Have them get their name out there in a positive way. Nothing negative about me is on the first 100 searches for my name. It is mostly me on various technical web sites, mailing lists etc.
Idiot.
Would not equitable tolling come into play?
"True" equals "not libelous". But "not libelous" does not automatically equal "true".
He didn't make that up. You did, as a strawman.
How do you know that these aren't really her writings and that she's not just hiding the crazy from you?
I've been through this myself...
As a temporary action, get the word out -- literally. Build a site or two of your own on her if needed, e.g, her official site, then get in touch with her fans, list, the press, whatever, and serve them a sensationalist "writer gets libeled online by her ex" story... If they bite, the site with her name in the domain won't get to Google's first page of results with a little luck. Even if it does, the many results that mention the smear campaign on the same page will serve as a counterweight and douse it.
In my case, that was enough to get the domain. In case it's not enough for you to do the same, sue...
Sue the ex-husband for libel, defamation, whatever... but also -- and more importantly -- to recover the domain name. If it's a .com or any other US tld, it's under US jurisdiction and can be seized by a US court; period, end of story -- irrespective of where the ex-boyfriend might be based or hosted. If the MAFIAA can shut down .com domains that serve torrents, and big business can grab domains on grounds that they're too similar to their own, you can shut down or retrieve a domain. Her name is her de facto trademark. Don't just sue the ex-boyfriend, either. Also file complaints with the registrar, the hosting business, etc. They'll take pre-emptive action more often than not when contacted. Consult with an attorney specialized in this kind of stuff, and take action under his guidance.
links or it didn't happen!
Many countries like England have extremely strong libel laws.
Are you recommending libel tourism?
She should hire an english attorney and have him prosecuted in the UK.
Defamation judgments outside the United States that violate the First Amendment protection of freedom of expression are unenforceable in the United States. This became explicit in the third quarter of 2010.
The UK is reputed to be the best venue to sue -from- (if you can afford the legal fees).
Others may be able to share their success stories...
Well, no, being untrue is necessary but not sufficient for it to be found to be libel.
There's a gray area in between: what if the accusations are untrue, but you can't prove it?
Note, IANAL, so I don't know if a civil suit for libel would work out well if the accusations are all hearsay (e.g., "I heard that she has sex with her dog!"), but if the allegations are vague enough and difficult or impossible to disprove ("she told me that she's a pedophile", leading to a he-said-she-said argument with her claiming she never said any such thing), she may be in a difficult spot.
Any lawyers here with expertise in libel? Asking software and IT geeks seems like the worst place to find advice for this, this is definitely a question for a lawyer.
Clearly she pissed someone off badly. Are you sure this is without merit?
My suggestion is to hold off until you've been married to her for a year or so - that way, you can better determine whether her ex-husband's statements are indeed a smear campaign or are rooted in fact.
#DeleteChrome
Thats nothing i used to work really hard for this company called monitise in the uk and whilst i worked hard and did my job properly one of the idiots who took a large dislike to me went around on a smear campaign in the industry i worked in isn't funny how men treat women in IT.
So now i can no longer get a job in the career i built because of that individuals campaign of hate my heart goes out to you!
Elsewhere. To wit - I had a technical debate with people from arstechnica (who stalked me to numerous websites unceasingly, for years (NTCompatible.com, 3dFiles.com, Majorgeeks.com & lastly they did so @ Windows IT Pro magazine's forums, where it all "came to a head"...)).
A Jeremy Reimer and Jay Little to be specific naming them both here. They did the following:
---
1.) Libeled me in various ways (altering photographs of me, writing stupid songs, etc.)
2.) Reimer impersonated me on his personal website (and not in a good way).
3.) Jay Little put out websites saying "APK MUST BE PUT TO DEATH" etc. also
4.) Both email harassed me unceasingly
---
All simply because I got the best of them on Exchange Servers being halted by fragmented memory and proved (via documentation from Microsoft that a memory optimizing program can stop that & unhalt them).
---
A.) They began a smear campaign after the above, again, which got them both put onto tracking tickets from their ISP's (Shaw of Canada for Reimer).
B.) Plus - The police in their areas were also contacted and my own.
(That stopped the email harassment!)
C.) Portions of Jeremy Reimer's website was forcibly removed by his hosting provider and Reimer was made to ADMIT PUBLICLY that the impersonator was NOT ME!
D.) Jay Little had his website removed from his hosting provider CrystalTech.com also.
---
HOWEVER:
The folks @ their hosting providers told me "They will just move to another hosting provider and do it again" and, sure enough, they did.
* This is the problem - You can go to the hosting provider but then scum of the internet like these fools I noted will do it again elsewhere on another hosting provider.
(You can chase them to doomsday, and all the cease & desist letters you want to waste money on will be useless in those cases as well (I never had to do that - I merely showed the cases of impersonation, libel, and threats made my way to the hosting providers of their websites)).
APK
P.S.=> That's how it goes - you can stop them on 1 hosting provider, they will drop them as Jeremy Reimer did, who hosted his site himself after that (OR BE FORCIBLY REMOVED ENTIRELY, as was Jay Little from CrystalTech.com).
Once more though - If they are THAT "mentally messed up", then they will just move to another hosting provider and do it again (when they are mentally ill as those 2 have shown themselves to be)...
... apk
Those in glass houses shouldn't throw website URLs. Don't actually do the same to him, just let him know that you can and would and he'll take them down ASAP.
when you get married have her change her name, unless she is one of those faux-feminists that abhor taking her man's name yet still agrees to the patriarchal-hinged monster that is marriage.
The Internet cancer.
Hack his website and make his "insane ravings and defamatory content" become death threats and accusations of corruption directed at politicians and law enforcement in whatever country he resides in. He'll end up hospitalized or dead.
I see your debating skills are on par with your logic skills.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Set up an internet task force (read: the same type of folks that end up in these campaigns for anonymous) and have them all download with no caching the content from his servers over and over and over and over. You get the idea. You'll cost him tons in bandwidth charges and he will stop.
Next time, try not getting divorced.
That is blatantly not true. So perhaps that is where your problem lies. You need to learn what libel is.
This really should have been posted on FML, not Slashdot.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Get a better lawyer that actually has some experience in this particular field. Or just wait it out, if her reputation is as solid as you say, then it won't crumble under a few hits like that.
Though, despite all the advice here, I'd consider something else. Simply ignore his existence. It would have been even easier if you would have stayed out of court altogether, but in my experience, people like that, can't stick to a single thing for a long time, in a few months time, things would have dramatically changed.
One other thing you might attempt, is to make your own website, done right it can make all the difference for the web presence. As for friends and co-workers, a few simple mails to the more connected ones would have an incredible impact.
As a side note, since she's a professional writer, maybe a novel writer(?), could she feature him in a book with a suitable role?
change her name
10 to 1 says he is also raising his fiancee's ex-husband's kid.
Open your web browser to the site and set a simple script or macro that will refresh the site infinitely. His bandwidth costs will max out or go through the roof and the site will go down. It's not really a DOS campaign, so probably not illegal. Check on that first though. I'm not an expert, just a brainstorming guy.
Although if it's a common name it might not be trade marked either.
I would assume that what is most worrying is that most people that google her wouldn't tell you that they did so. To at least defend against that, your fiancee should create a blog defending herself from the accusations, so at least her side would be expressed.
At least it would garner sympathy for her, and potential employers/clients may feel pity for her more than anything and overlook the whole mess.
Then, we can have a script writing contest - the one who can write a single script to download the most bits from the fucker's site in a month wins.
Of course, we might have to run that contest three or four HUNDRED times, just to be sure who really won....
Bribe some officials.
You win this battle by issueing a lot more positive content. An active blog, perhaps some youtube videos, twitter, facebook, and get her friends to link to these items. Put out new content on a regular basis (probably doesn't have to be daily, but atleast weekly or every couple of days).
Putting out a ton of negative content about the ex-husband just makes you look as evil and idiotic as he is. You want her to look better not the same.
"Hey, how best to censor someone saying something I disagree with?"
Any trick that will ultimately work for you, will work for some religious group trying to shut down opposed discourse. I'm sorry your ex had such terrible choice in mates before you, but I don't think there's a way to silence him saying crazyass bullshit.
Send the John Boehner to the ex-husband. No good can come of the encounter.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
That is a brilliant solution.
Using the full name as a URL and defacing it is blatant slander. I bet you can take this to court and win pretty easily, but IANAL.
The G
...because personally I would have given up after reading half of the utterly useless comments here.
:(
This is what you need to do and it will work:
Find a highly reputable P.R. firm that deals with SEO. I'm not talking about the kind of SEO "specialist" that you find on Craigslist - I'm talking about the kind that handles Fortune 500 businesses. The P.R. firm will begin creating sensible blogs in your name having something to do with an interest of yours or possibly a business. The will create Facebook pages, Google+ pages, Twitter tweets as well. The P.R. firm will also create articles about you and/or your business which will appear on a variety of small sites . The will link everything together through a variety of sites that they own. The Blogs and P.R. releases and everything else will change the page rank so that your good press will appear way above the bad foreign sites that concern you.
All the above will probably cost you between 5 and 10K at the very least but it will solve the problem. You will have to decide if the expense is justified - you could well consider it a tax deductible expense if the P.R. company concentrates on a business of yours.
A related note. - in the heyday of Slashdot what I suggested would have been one of the very first comments and the most highly rated. It speaks to where the readership has fallen to today that you have had to sift through dozens of useless comments talking about lawsuits, freedom of speech , trademarking your name (wtf!) and even a couple of misogynists raging about "teh wimmen"
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
Marry her. She changes both her official last name, and her pen name. And bam! the guy has to re-buy new domains matching the new name, and has to re-do the smear campaign from scratch :) And preferably, before she changes her name, pre-emptively buy domains before the ex-husband does.
Here's how to erase your bad internet reputation: go back in time and don't be a such a bitch next time around.
So sue him *abroad*, why do you think you're restricted to US law?
Or simply ignore him. I do when my name pops up, I simply say, oh that's some *other* person with the same name. He wants revenge and you reacting to this is his revenge. Ultimately he's paying to have that website, and sooner or later he'll get sick of paying for it.
This is exactly what I was thinking, if he really wants to keep the websites up make him pay big bucks for it.
Google or Bing: internet reputation management. There are many legitimate companies that help people from all walks of life get their good names back via a variety of legitimate methods.
Alright! I know I'm in there! If I don't come out, I'll have to come in after me!
Post the address and we'll do the rest.
With a new woman. His obsession will fade, and the domains will expire.
This is called cyber squatting and this is covered by most countries laws. Don't bother going after him. Go after the web site's host. And ask local law enforcements the best way to stop it.
Long ago and far away, a Google for my real name turned up about ten pages of results that were me, before getting around to anything that wasn't. Of course, those pages dealt with different bits of me, so there could still have been some confusion over whether they meant the technologist with my name, or the writer with my name, or the music journalist with my name, or the photographer with my name, or the foreign-affairs sort with my name - never mind that they were all the same person.
In the last few years, Google has managed to find people with the same name who aren't actually me, so there's a brain surgeon, a rugby player, and a soccer player, as well as a bunch of youthful sorts half a world away. At the same time, I've been a little more careful about the "make this visible to search engines" boxes on sites. So now, Googling my name finds a variety of people, most of whom aren't me.
I would suggest that the OP and his fiancée create five or ten online identities with the same name that her ex refers to, with details that don't match her real identity, but do match (or at least are ambiguous about matching) things her ex is saying. Give people reason to stop and doubt whether the person being badmouthed is that one, or some other one.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I'm disappointed in these responses. Seriously, what kind of answers are these, only one person had the right suggestion but didn't know enough to make it clear. Note to your future selves: when you feel the impulse to comment - don't. Opinions are expensive for people seeking serious information, and you look truly foolish. That or venture over to CNN as you will have joined the ranks of knucklehead opinion spammers...
anyway: If you literally OWN the domains - ICANN is the route. If they are truly defamatory and you don't own the domains, ICANN is still the route. It's very cheap, you don't need a lawyer (though if you have some funds, doesn't hurt to not screw it up especially on a heated issue), and takes just minutes to see if you qualify. If what you say here is true, or true enough, you *very* likely will. I have had a similar situations and justice was upheld.. Domain name movement is not governed ISPs hosting content, it's on DNS entry from domain issuers who must comply in order to retain their licenses. This is not usually a problem globally unless anything changed in the last few years.
ON THE OTHER HAND: if I were to be even slightly skeptical - as this post surely leaves a lot for the imagination - If this is not the case (aka, you don't meet the 3 simple criteria to win in a complaint from ICANN but complain anyway), and it's not some serious Internet game changing case (which you should seek legal counsel immediately), consider these very bad responses:. SEO? Serious waste of time and likely drive more traffic to their site. Anti-smear page? You'd just be informing more people that those pages exist. Get revenge? You wouldn't be posting on slashdot if it was getting serious traffic. So, in this case, take the alpha male in you over to the country of Mr. Ex strapped, go buck-wild gangsta, commit murder than suicide, and give your wife a chance at a real husband after she get's over being a petty teenager on some grade A BS... Because if ICANN can't help, that's exactly what it is.
Anyone else think the original post was written by "the writer," who is searching for some help with a story?
It reads like it was written by a woman and there is that troubling character development -- a "professional" writer, "everyone who knows her loves her" stuff.
If it's a real post, I think we all know that nothing says "I love you" more than having the guy whacked. ;-)
Wow, amazing how much useless advice there is here. You might reconsider that "best community of geeks" through.
Advice: google the term "cybersquatting."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Share the links to the sites. I wanna know what's up.
The question I have is, what if the ex is telling the truth?
Be seeing you...
... unless the material can be proven libelous (and even then it will be a long, ugly battle). If people like Rick Santorum can't make the spreadingsantorum.com site go away, you're not likely going to make yours go away. Your best shot will be to get a positive site ranked higher using various SEO tactics.
Depending on the country the guy is doing this from, this may not be considered free speech there:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/11/22/ottawa-restaurant-owner-gets-bail-after-libel-sentencing.html
An internet smear campaign in Ottawa recently landed a woman in jail (albeit for only 5 days while she awaits an appeals court). Look into the local laws!
I have been looking at how Enron has been smearing the people that stood up and did their civic duty. The ethical ones that testified in the Enron Broadband case. These people have been trashed over and over again in attempt to manipulate the judge and jury during the retrials and sentencing.
Over the next few days I will be posting all details to my site http://enemaron.wordpress.com
This is new information so I'm hoping once all of the details have been exposed. I can start to help these people get their reputations back in order. It will probably take a couple of days to put all of the facts up. The corrupt corporate criminals will soon be exposed along with the unethical approach of another corporation.
Enemaron
"few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either"
They shouldn't. Courts don't make claims, they resolve issues of fact and law.
Angry at an ex? Angry at an employer? Angry at your neighbor? Pissed off that you hit on a guy and he wasn't interested and shot you down? You can easily ruin someone's life by just posting shit about them on a site called the Rip Off Report. Google curiously gives them incredibly high page ranking, but the site is nothing more than a scam. They NEVER REMOVE ANYTHING and they're proud of it. Even if you go to court. And you can be anonymous, while putting up real information (including name, etc) of your "target". It'll sit there forever. It'll get ranked high up on the first page of Google. They exploit shady SEO practices. And the only way they'll work with you is IF YOU PAY THEM for a "partnership service" that they advertise. Reportedly, it's around $5,000 -- give or take.
You can google for all sorts of controversy regarding it. It has ruined a lot of people's lives -- and you're not even dealing with international issues or anything.
I had someone defrauding users on my site, once. I banned them for it and next thing I knew, I had a really scummy "review/complaint/whatever" on this site. Absolutely no recourse and the other person is anonymous (though, obviously not -- since I recognized their insane babbling just like the hundreds of emails they sent me for a year after they were banned).
It's really really shady shit and I don't think they're the only site that does it.
.
Step 1: Find out his actual contact information.
Step 2: Collect a list of all the creepy things he is into, like harassing previous girlfriends on-line, and posting smut to defame them. Any fetishes? You'll know best what to say, but keep it honest.
Step 3: Place a want ad in HIS local papers, prominent and big so his employers and prospective GF's are sure to get wind of it. He will no longer be anonymous and the common people around him will treat him with the respect he deserves. Be sure that everything in that ad is 100% factual and can be backed up by evidence and usable in court if necessary. Notarize evidence from the web or documents if necessary.
Something like:
Hi, my name is <first_name> and I'm really sad, have no life of my own, and I'm looking for a new girlfriend. My last one, actually my X, is mad because I posted all kinds of bad things about her online, and I need a new squeeze real bad. If your into doing <XXXXX> or <YYYYY> then please give me a call and ask me how my websites are doing. We'll have fun. Thanks, <first_last_name> (NNN) NNN-NNNN.
Step 4: Wait for him to post a copy of the placed ad (his own truthful smut) online to spite you.
Make sure your own information is in no way tied to that ad, anonymously placed and paid for if possible, and that everything contained in that ad is completely factual. Two can play at his own game. Once he realizes his anonymity is gone and he is now stuck with living in the same dirt he created, he might back down, and give up. Thought the opposite is certainly possible in which case a restraining order sounds like a good idea, just in case. But again it would be fun to see him post his own smut as evidence of what a creep he really is if he figures out it was you. He will likely broadcast his own lack of morals and demented frame of mine to the world and prove what a gentleman he really is.
Like I said, this would all be against my better judgement, except for the restraining order part, but what the heck, I had fun thinking about it.
I tend to agree with the AC, since the second amendment appears to protect the "right to harass" as well as the "right to offend", the law is not interested. So you either suck it up, or sort it out yourself with the less civilized eye for an eye protocol. No need for guns or friends in the intelligence community (since you know ehere he lives). Just tell your story at the local bar, someone will know where to hire a "wrecking crew" to redecorate his home office whilst giving him a lecture on how quickly life turns to shit when people use "free speech" as an excuse for their bad behavior. $500 tops with no hospital grade violence, slime ball will be back in his box before you can finish your beer.
Thing is, you no longer have the option of cheap, efficient, "natural justice". By posting the story on Slashdot you have already committed yourself to fighting him indirectly, and worse still, on his home ground.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I watched my son kidnapped. The abductor registered my legal name after a mistrial and I was subjected to 11 years of criminal defamation. The United States Law Enforcement will not act, nor will ICANN even in direct violation cases, without bribery. It took 10 years to obtain a copy of the court order, over objections and defamation by the STATE OF TEXAS and STATE OF OKLAHOMA in obstruction.
The firms ROBERT HALF TECHNOLOGIES of Dallas Texas and Sparkhosting L.L.C. of Dallas Texas, along with Gebhardt Broadcsting L.L.C. of Plano Texas, were used to set up my legal name in extortion threats and publish plans to sabotage my Oklahoma company (established prior my son's birth, targeted in the child taking in letters of extortion to key witnesses), and U.S. State and Federal law enforcement officers would not act.
Now that it has come to light that two directors at NTT America in Ann Arbor Michigan acted as DNS hosts for the 2011 July to 2012 extortion, including written THREATS OF RAPE against my key female witness in the case sent in September 2012, co-operating the lostserver.net domain from which attacks (including an 8.3 million ICMP DoS from patriot.lostserver.net originated July 25 2012) amid fraudulent claims of libel to suppress report of the 11 year unlawful child concealment, an 42 U.S.C. 1983 Federal Civil Lawsuit is being prepared due to this criminal negligence of U.S. officers in denial of contact for 11 years and violation of Federal Law in ransom (15 U.S.C. 1673 b denial - linked to 18 U.S.C. 1513 violations).
I was the Senior Software Engineer for Nortel Networks Wireless Engineering Tools Division in Richardson Texas just prior my son's kidnapping. NTT America was a competitor, and has during this defamation risen to take over those markets while 80,000 people lost their jobs and Nortel Networks was forced into bankruptcy. Most people upon hearing the story believe that if any of what I said were true, State and Federal law enforcement in Texas would have already acted - but the damage created by FALSE REPORT OF A COURT PROCEEDING and FRAUD TO SABOTAGE AN EXISTING COMPANY ACROSS STATE LINES BY HOSTAGE TAKING paired with threat of murder, call for murder, offer of aid to commit murder in writing, and a November 2002 attempt on my life at gunpoint followed by attempted murder in vehicular sabotage - went unpunished in the State of Texas.
Given the same sort of denial behavior in Enron and MCI Worldcom scandals under the same Attorney General, and flat written letters of contempt and denial by State officers in Child Protective Services to a credible and substantiated report of Interference in Interstate Commerce (18 USC 1951), this sort of abuse is unacceptable - even criminal. Only threats of RAPE this year really keyed the public into my situation, and a subsequent MURDER of an East Central University of Oklahoma student in Ada Oklahoma, whose killer kept asking people to drive him to the place of work of the witness being threatened, quieted public animosity and support of the child kidnapping and 11 year concealment.
On class action in Bitara v The State of Texas, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott plead "Sovereign Immunity" to avoid the trial, and such immunity vacated under "The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide", and these acts (2002-2004 registration of name to allege mental illness to suppress recovery of an abducted child, 2009-2012 defamation site with commercial sabotage plans to attack trademarks of the victim and their firm, 2011-2012 registration again of the victim's legal name using THE IDENTITY OF THE COMPANIES OF THE ABDUCTORS EMPLOYER IN DALLAS TEXAS to do these things - went unpunished when brought before a judge upon written threats to "BASH MY SKULL IN" in support of "INCITEMENT TO CONTACT TO HARRASS IN THE $250,000 illegal sale of my registered trademark to support the kidnapping.
The United States of America has failed. It's law enforcement is impetent and unable to protect U.S. Businesses. There is no
Sounds like he's going to an awful lot of effort, just run with the new brand he's helping to create and get your wife to become whatever the smear campaign says she is. Then write her into the novels as a character.
profit!!!
SEO is actually a great idea.
I work with writers on press releases as part of my job and I can tell you that if you publish a press release with your name appearing it in many times, there is a good chance that you could push his website off the front page of Google or at least far down the list. Part of the reason for this is when you seed a press release it goes out to multiple sources who are in good standing with Google, and so these links tend to propagate toward the top of the list for low-volume terms. Most people's names fall into this category and the name we are talking about here certainly does or this guys website would have never even appeared on the list. If your name was Michael Jordan, for example, you would never have this problem.
So my recommendation is to get a press release out. If you already have a business or other important news item that it may be valuable to communicate about on the Internet, you may be able to kill two birds with one stone here. You could earn a little karma on the Internet for your business or writing product while at the same time drowning out the message you don't want to see when your name is googled.
As a professional writer you may even have a fair grasp on how to proceed in this direction on your own once suggested, but if you need help with it, as I said I do it as part of my job, so you could check out elephantwriters.com if more assistance is needed.
__
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. My original sig was raptured. Details at 11.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
A true writer would be writing a book about the experience, rather than embarking on a quixotic quest to silence her deranged ex.
Amazon is a private-sector business. Delisting from Amazon doesn't bar one from relisting elsewhere.
No disrespect meant to any denizen of slashdot, but the definitive place to go to ask about this sort of thing is Groklaw.
But please be prepared for the fact that the first answer you will get will be: "Hire a lawyer..." Getting past that, you'll find a lot of useful advice from knowledgeable people.
Defamation and libel are more examples of Imaginary Property. Statements are not automatically truth: their worth is measured in either the presence of supporting evidence or in the author's willingness to stake their reputation upon the statement. Those without such, or indeed with a transparent motive for vindication such as in this case, have little worth. Get over it.
They are cheap in most places defined as "abroad".
not war ;) I see that 99% of advice here is to fight hate with hate. Potentially involving 'lawyers', which is a name for a bunch of educated scumbags.
Really, it is more productive to actually talk to the guy who maintains the websites and ask him what he wants. Why does he do it? Does *he* feel that he is the wronged party? Maybe he wants recognition for all the work he did putting the original websites, for example. Before, he had the girl. Now some sleaze came and took his girl away. Would you be mad?
Literally, reality bites. Where does the ex-husband live and how much are you willing to pay? There's always a bunch of burly men ready to knock at, um, knock his door down and "convince" him to give away all those websites or turn them off.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
So, the crazy ex-husband is exerting money, time and effort to all but defame this woman? There are many possibilities here, but the most likely are
1.) He is a psycho. To make this judgment, you need to have met him or his friends/family. You can't take her word for it.
2.) She is a psycho. Take half of everything he claims on the websites as true and re-evaluate your situation. This guy might be doing you a favor.
No matter which scenario is true, if you stay with this woman, there will be drama for the rest of your days. Do you LOVE drama?
As I see it, there are only three options:
... to be sure.
1. Invoke DMCA against him if he's using any images without permission
2. Start your own counter-smear campaign by setting up your own URL's in his name, and listing that shit at google.
3. Take off, Nuke the site from orbit.
This isn't a technical question. It's a legal question. She needs a better lawyer, not a better geek.
Think about it - if my name is Joe Smith, why would I create a website www.joesmith.com and then slander myself in my own name? Wouldn't a potential client see enough ripping of myself on www.joesmith.com, .net, .org, and see the connection? There may be one or two people out there that would fall for it, but most people are tech savvy enough to see through it.
It sounds like they've been through the ringer with this ex-husband, but it seems like it wouldn't have that big of an effect, particularly once the woman's actual work was seen for what it truly is. My guess is only a few people would follow the lie. Just a guess.
Sue. Essentially you have two choices; Either the individual has broken the law (that's called a criminal suit), or he hasn't (that's called a civil suit). The truth never enters into the American legal system, it's all a matter of how much money each side has.
After previous articles on "Right to be forgotten" (for instance http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/11/21/017245/why-big-data-could-sink-europes-right-to-be-forgotten) and topics similar to it getting mostly ridiculed (except perhaps by a couple of people defending EU actions) I was expecting some interesting discussions on the real-world scenario presented by the poster.
Instead all the replies seem to range from "STFU and suck it up" to "murder him". Yes, I have heard of this thing called "a joke" but that doesn't change the fact that there doesn't seem to be one proper serious suggestion in this whole thread or even anything resembling an intelligent discussion along the lines ".. this is a choice between absolute freedom of speech and protection of individuals and I do not believe in any justification for limiting freedom of speech.."
As you may have already read between the lines I personally think "Right to be forgotten" has some merit and that it is in practice a very difficult matter of balancing rights of different people. Seriously, after the comments in the previous threads one would expect someone to have something meaningful to say.
The libertarian gospel doesn't extend to the real world? (/troll)
"If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career."
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Sue him in England.
As we all know, UK libel law, even as "reformed" presumes his guilt once accused.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Er, what?
1. Non-defamatory claims aren't libel, whether or not they are true, so far as I know. Not all insulting or negative remarks are defamatory.
2. I believe there's some exceptions for stuff having to do with public figures.
3. You can firmly believe something, but not think a court will be convinced of it.
Believing that something someone says about you is untrue is not by any means a rational basis for concluding that a court will consider it to be libel.
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I love all the great solutions posted here but once you marry her, her name changes. Problem solved. Just use her new name and use the suggestions posted here about trademarking her new and former name as solutions.
You are fighting on different fronts, and each area requires its own approach. I will, for the moment, just take the story at face value (in my experience there are usually untold stories that can greatly change or add to the picture).
1 - Jurisdiction. I don't know where the husband lives and where the websites are, but there are few places in the world where you are left entirely without power - especially since your post seems to suggest the attacks are personal. Can't help you there without knowing more, sorry, but you're giving up too quickly.
2 - Internet. If the domain names are hers, are named after her or relate in any other way to her there is scope for declaring them her property or a trademark violation, but you have to see that in the context of where they are hosted. Whatever you do, PLEASE do not go into discussion as a typical American and demand things because you will have lost the leverage without even having a discussion. First find out about local laws and see what leverage you have and respect that things work differently there. This is not exactly a short process and needs some sensitivity, but in my experience, a little bit of diplomacy and tact goes a long way (yes, I've done this before).
3 - Reputation. There is zero you can do about the situation right now - you will need to disable the broadcast before you can start repairing, and the effort depends very much on the type of rantings online. I apologise I can't help you right now, but without specifics I cannot tell you what to do other than that removal of the offending sites together with publishing is really the fastest way to clean it up. You can try to override his ranking but that takes a lot of effort which may not pay off. There are also other ways, but they are not suitable for a public forum (involve Intellectual Property) and they are *expensive*.
4 - The individual in question himself. Unless you deal with him this is like a disaster waiting to repeat itself and no, I'm not talking about "dealing with him" in the lead filled Hollywood fantasy, I'm talking about establishing some form of communication or even meeting up. People don't suddenly turn into deluded idiots and it may be worth establishing what is really going on (although I obviously don't know the whole story). The prime benefit of this last step is that it may remove the need for everything of the above - he is at the root of your problem. See if there is a way you can negotiate a truce or have a 3rd party help you with that - especially tech people tend to forget that taking care of the human factor can be far more effective than plastering over the key problem with technology.
All in all, good luck.
Insert
Clearly if it's simply a bother but you can't really come up with quantifiable damages, you should simply shut up and move on with your lives. Stop whining!
If you CAN document damages, then you can go to court both in the US and in most other countries. Other countries tend to have far looser libel standards than the US anyway so I don't see the problem here.
Unfortunately this happens quite often. There is a specific type of tactics used to bring down these sites or knock them off the top of SERPs, it is called "Reputation Management". Depending on the competition and other factors it can be a little pricey, so you will have to outweigh the benefits against the cost. Feel free to contact me for a reference.
Not that I agree with the vast majority of what they're used for, but reputation.com is one the outfits that springs to mind. Definietely go on the trademarking of one's own name then yank the domain on a uDRP complaint.
Contact Ken at the Popehat blog ( http://www.popehat.com/author/ken/ ) - he's an internet savvy attorney, former Federal Prosecutor, now very involved in online reputation and so forth stuff, who Gets It.
Probably the right thing to do is to trademark your name and use the registrars dispute resolution processes, but he can almost certainly give more specific and much more educated information and advice.
Looking at it from a different angle (and I should state clearly up-front here that IANAL) the OP appears to be saying that this person is misrepresenting the content of the sites as being by her, not about her.
Under such circumstances, libel and slander are clearly irrelevant, but how about fraud?
Obviously this is an assumption, based on my reading of the OP. Without a link, I can't tell if the ex is defaming, or impersonating the submitters fiancee.
Just my $0.03 (At current exchange rates, my £0.02 is worth more than your $0.02)