Google Cracks Down On Mugshot Blackmail Sites

Google is apparently displeased with sites designed to extract money from arrestees in exchange for removing their mugshot pictures online, and is tweaking its algorithms to at least reduce their revenue stream. From the article at The New York Times: "It was only a matter of time before the Internet started to monetize humiliation. ... The sites are perfectly legal, and they get financial oxygen the same way as other online businesses — through credit card companies and PayPal. Some states, though, are looking for ways to curb them. The governor of Oregon signed a bill this summer that gives such sites 30 days to take down the image, free of charge, of anyone who can prove that he or she was exonerated or whose record has been expunged. Georgia passed a similar law in May. Utah prohibits county sheriffs from giving out booking photographs to a site that will charge to delete them. ... But as legislators draft laws, they are finding plenty of resistance, much of it from journalists who assert that public records should be just that: public."

Comments

The solution is simple.

[__aaltlg1547]

The simple solution is to press extortion charges against websites that offer to take down pictures of the subjects for money.

Re:The solution is simple.

[asmkm22]

I'm pretty sure the pictures are considered public domain, in the same way that certain other legal information is. That's assuming that the person really was convicted of the crime and the picture was officially released or otherwise searchable through traditional means.

Otherwise, we'd have constant reports of celebrities filling lawsuits every time one of their mugshots is posted.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need to be accused of a crime, not convicted. Search the name of my now dead ex, and you will see a mugshot, even though she was never convicted. Her picture is next to a sexual predator as I recall.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the sites posting celebrity mugshots aren't offering to take those mugshots down in exchange for cash. That's an important distinction.

Re:The solution is simple.

[OverlordQ]

> the simple solution is not to be a bad person.

They're putting up *ALL* booking photos. Even those who are innocent. Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obviously public domain, but by when require a ransom to take it down, it becomes extortion.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Bing Tsher E]

How can you be sure that her picture is next to that of a sexual predator? Maybe he was never convicted, too.

Re:The solution is simple.

[mysidia]

The simple solution is to press extortion charges against websites that offer to take down pictures of the subjects for money.

Indeed... I would suggest a law that it will be a criminal offense for the CEO or Management of any company, to execute that particular form of extortion.

Then the CEO can have their mugshot posted all over the place, and see how it feels.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Seumas]

It doesn't work.

Google should ALSO be pulling the plug on that "rip off report" site that let's anyone leave negative comments of any kind about anyone under any circumstances (including name, phone number, domains, address, etc) and never *ever* removes it . . . but will work with the person being attacked . . . if they pay for the "business/corporate relation services".

I banned a user from my website almost a decade ago for defrauding other users, using false information for their account, and sending death threats to other users (and myself) and shortly after, that person posted some pretty awful stuff on the site which I have no way to ever remove, unless I want to submit to the extortion of the guy behind that site. Google includes their results right at the top of most people's results (though I believe Yahoo! has since dinged the domain for SEO spamming).

It's no different than these mugshots, except that at least with mugshots, you have been arrested. With these "reputation" and "consumer protection" sites that are actual extortionists (especially this one), you don't have to have been arrested. Or even have done business with the person making the attack. Or even *have* a business (I don't and didn't). You can literally just take anyone you're pissed off at and sale vile things about them on the site, include personal information and contact information and so on, and it'll be up there until the end of time, marring any searches for them in the future.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud Google for this move but the solution is for LEO not to release pictures or other personally identifiable information about people who have not been convicted in the first place because doing so can ruin an innocent person's life and innocent people get charged with crimes all the time. On a related note, when Strauss-Kahn got the "perp walk" treatment, many in France were shocked because the practice is banned there to protect the innocent,

Re:The solution is simple.

[Shadow of Eternity]

It isn't simple at all, my dear ass, because as other comments have pointed out these pictures are taken for *anyone* that gets booked... whether or not you even committed a crime.

Re:The solution is simple.

[russotto]

Yes, it is simple. Don't do illegal stuff. For most people when the do illegal stuff it stays on their record.

Honestly, i don't believe in the drug laws, but I do think following laws, at least enough to not get caught is a sign of discipline and intelligence, characteristics that employers want. I suspect that the vast majority of us do not end up in booking.

I've been arrested twice and of those, booked (with mugshot) once. In neither case was I convicted of a crime. So what's your advice for those who are arrested despite not committing a crime?

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone who is arrested is guilty, and there are thousands of things that are illegal which shouldn't be crimes.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is simple. Don't do illegal stuff.

How does that prevent one from getting arrested? Are you saying that everyone who is arrested is guilty? Why are we even bothering with a court system?

Re:The solution is simple.

[__aaltlg1547]

Have you filed a defamation suit?

Re:The solution is simple.

[angel'o'sphere]

In other countries such pictures get not published. They are property of the government (hence copyrighted) and according to privacy laws and laws about your personal right to have control over the fotos taken from you, publishinig them is a copyright infringement, a infringement on privacy and demanding money to remove them from "the internet" is blackmailing and fraud.
If some one would do that with my mugshot in my country he had bad luck. Surprising that in gods own country people obviously have no rights at all and need a new law every year to combat such exploits.

Re:The solution is simple.

[__aaltlg1547]

That does not make it OK to use the pictures for extortion.

Re:The solution is simple.

[moteyalpha]

1. Someone gets arrested for prostitution.
2. Internet publishes their picture.
3. They get more business.
4. Profit!

Re:The solution is simple.

[_Sharp'r_]

Public records are publicly available and government photos are "not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work."..

That said, it should be slander to post the records with the implication they mean someone is guilty of something. Posting the final disposition of charges, or something along those lines would be sufficient to defend against that.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Etherwalk]

> the simple solution is not to be a bad person.

They're putting up *ALL* booking photos. Even those who are innocent. Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.

And if the consequences to sharing the arrests of the guilty were always commensurate to the alleged crime.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Austrian Anarchy]

I applaud Google for this move but the solution is for LEO not to release pictures or other personally identifiable information about people who have not been convicted in the first place because doing so can ruin an innocent person's life and innocent people get charged with crimes all the time. On a related note, when Strauss-Kahn got the "perp walk" treatment, many in France were shocked because the practice is banned there to protect the innocent,

This indeed is the correct solution. If governments were not tossing these pictures about willy-nilly, these sites would not have any content of anybody who was later found not guilty. The sources are frequently sheriff's department websites that amount to a big giant campaign sight at taxpayer expense saying "Hey! Look how many people we are arresting for YOU!"

It is pretty haphazard too. I have been trying to get an FBI wanted poster from 1972, of a guy who was caught and confessed (for real) in 1986, but they keep saying it cannot be released because it is of a "living person." I ended up getting the 1982 version from a collector's site anyway.

Re:The solution is simple.

[kermidge]

I don't think you know how things work.

Even for the simple exercise of free speech and assembly, the order of the day is increasingly "catch and release", often without so much as a ticket for most yet all are routinely fingerprinted and photographed. This was not uncommon all the way back to anti-war protests in the '70s and it's only gotten worse.

Will you seriously contend that exercising basic rights [once-upon-a-time] protected by the constitution makes one a bad person?

Mayhap you presume that anyone arrested is automatically guilty of something and deserving of conviction? Is someone convicted under what is later shown to be bad law also a bad person?

Well, then, carry on, Citizen, the State needs more like you.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need to be accused of a crime, not convicted. Search the name of my now dead ex, and you will see a mugshot, even though she was never convicted. Her picture is next to a sexual predator as I recall.

So that we may see this photo, what is Mrs. Coward's first name?

Re:The solution is simple.

[Nimey]

Because everyone's rich enough to afford legal representation after paying for rent, food, clothing, and medicine?

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

the simple solution is not to be a bad person.

So by virtue of your simpleton comment, we can surmise that you believe law enforcement NEVER makes any mistakes and there are never any false arrests, right???

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh making LEO act like they are supposed to instead of the Organized Gang that they really are.

Your LEO is no different than the local crack dealing gang, except they are better financed and have better equipment. But the level of scumbags that are soldiers on the ground are the same.

Do not trust cops, EVER. They are your enemy and you must remember that at all times.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

So US is not that much different from most communists regimes back in the day - you could live and work there as long as you did not tease establishment all too much in which case they would brand you criminal and make your professional life going into sewer and other such things. Not that violent and evil as propaganda may want you to believe. Quite normal in fact for a civilized, democratic country fighting for peace and human rights.....

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would presume her name is Mrs. Ann Coward.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Jeremy Erwin]

I had been under the impression that Ann O'nymous Coward was female. That explains things. Fucking tease...

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been arrested twice and of those, booked (with mugshot) once. In neither case was I convicted of a crime. So what's your advice for those who are arrested despite not committing a crime?

He does not have any he is a typical moron who equates arrested with guilty. Amazing how after all this time these primitives have not internalized the core precept of modern jurisprudence, the accused are innocent until convicted.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Public records are publicly available and government photos are "not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work."..

Yup. In the USA that's the case. Maybe we should have more copyright controls - that fixes all the other problems on unregulated use of common information.

Re:The solution is simple.

[MisterSquid]

In the US since the late 1980's, getting arrested for any (and no) reason has become a huge socioeconomic problem as many employers, including low-tier employers, run background checks on prospective employees that flag subjects in the Federal NCIC database which records all arrests regardless of conviction, acquittal, guilt, or innocence.

As a result, many people (but especially black males and LNWI's, or Low Net Worth Individuals) are relegated to a lifetime of poor employment prospects, unable to land jobs even as burger-flippers. This is true even if these arrestees are innocent!

Dale Carson, a criminal defense attorney with experience as a police officer and an FBI agent, has written a book called "Arrest-Proof Yourself" which basically makes the argument that individuals should do anything they can (within the law) to avoid arrest for the simple fact that in the United States being arrested will bring incalculable financial harm to people who find themselves arrested for any reason.

The book is enlightening and can be profitably be read by almost everyone, even if one's risk of arrest is low.

Re:The solution is simple.

[scarboni888]

How can we do that if you don't give us the name?

Re:The solution is simple.

[scarboni888]

Well then if this is such a common practice the mug shots are meaningless and therefore no one should be getting humiliated by them.

Co-worker: haha I found your mug shot on the internet.
Me: Great now lets look for yours.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is an administrative fee.

Re:The solution is simple.

[interval1066]

This is a real problem. In an age where you can destroy a completely innocent life with a few mouseclicks I'm really surprised there's not been more of an outcry. Its trivial to destroy some one's credit and make them look like they're felons... and complete hell to correct these things.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

That applies only to the Federal government. State, county and municipal governments, who generate the vast majority of mugshots are free to set whatever copyright policies they wish.

Re:The solution is simple.

[gutnor]

Same advice as always in the US: don't be unlucky.

Re:The solution is simple.

[asmkm22]

That's not extortion though. It's not like they are threatening to spam your facebook friends with it if you don't pay up.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid Mod System:

The only way to not do anything Ilegal In the US now is to be dead and even that's against some insane law.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

All the examples in the article resulted in conviction.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if only bad people were ever legally arrested. The law and morality don't always agree.

Re:The solution is simple.

[nbauman]

I'm pretty sure the pictures are considered public domain, in the same way that certain other legal information is.

Yes, you can post information that is in public domain.

However, according to TFA, some prosecutors are treating it as a crime of extortion or blackmail to keep the photos on your web site unless the person pays you money.

My gut reaction is that I would like it to be a crime, but it may be difficult to establish in law.

Re:The solution is simple.

[nbauman]

Good, somebody read the exceptions.

There are also privacy rights, which go beyond the copyright.
http://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html#privacy_publicity

Since these web sites are trying to make money, there may also be publicity rights, which are subject to even greater restrictions.

Re:The solution is simple.

[nbauman]

One of the women in TFA was arrested because her partner was beating her up, she called the cops, and he accused her of a crime when the cops came.

Re:The solution is simple.

[nbauman]

Yes, it is simple. Don't do illegal stuff.

And don't be black.

Re:The solution is simple.

[nbauman]

Stupid Mod System:

There ought to be a mod category for posts that are so stupid they're worth reading just to show you how stupid and wrong people can be.

Re:The solution is simple.

[interval1066]

That post was moderated "troll", seriously? And I thought /. was populated with atleast a few thinkers... I defy anyone to make me see the light and explain how that was a troll?

Re:The solution is simple.

[mrclisdue]

How can we do that if you don't give us the name?

Simple, just google "sexual predator", and she's the one beside him.

cheers,

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem only became worse in the early 2000s, thanks to 9/11 and the Iraq War, when police began arresting potential domestic terrorists for the heinous crimes of (1) walking and (2) existing.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

The mug shot doesn't say what it is that you were arrested for, so people (your next employer) will think the worst.

Re:The solution is simple.

[MisterSquid]

Article? My link is to a book which, to my memory, contains examples of many kinds of arrestee cases, some of which ended in acquittal.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Gerzel]

I'd think the simple thing to do is make the picture copyright of the person of whom it is taken in the case of exoneration/dropped charges.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

he accused her of a crime when the cops came

The woman admitted to scratching the boyfriend on the chest sufficiently to draw blood; he (admittedly, drunk) claimed with a knife, she said she did it with her nails.
Perhaps that is why the boyfriend became belligerent. (?) The article doesn't go into sufficient detail.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess would be he/she doesn't have the money or time. Litigation is expensive in all senses of the word.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

My record is clean, but I was arrested for a 'terroristic threat' felony charged filed by my ex's lawyer as after he lied about paternity and faked paperwork I sent him an email that said, "I'm going to take you to court over this, and you're going to hurt just like you're making me hurt."

I'm from upstate NY but had driven down for family court to Arkansas where she moved, and was arrested at the court house on warrant. Small town middle of nowhere. Didn't get to see a public defender for 4 months until I went 11 days without eating, and didn't get to see the judge until just shy of 7 months. Got sent home that day and case thrown out, and it was funny as when they finally arraigned me that day they described it as "threatening to cause great harm" to his "career and financial well being." The whole time I was in their jail, they kept offering to pay my plane ticket home same day if I'd just plead guilty but I refused as I was 31 and had never even had a parking ticket.

Because it shows an arrest on my record (comes up in some checks, not in others), and it is possible to find my mug shot (just not easily for some reason on google, takes 4-5 pages down before you see it on image search, I have had to tell it to everyone job interview I had once getting out and getting back home. Luckily with being honest my current employer (largest wireless and fiber company in the country) I was able to get a nice union position and will make $80k the first year, but depending on who interviewed me it could have gone the wrong way.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Privacy and publicity rights are also state mandates.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea, pictures are never widely disseminated on the internet without permission.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Penguinisto]

...what sibling said.

If you were arrested at some point in the past and your face/mugshot winds up at the site, with a full (as possible) record of what happened to you? It's simply the truth. Now the ideal says that you paid your dues, did your time, etc. On the other hand, reality says you're not going to be able to bury such information anymore.

In spite of all that, I'm perfectly okay with such sites on these conditions:

1) a sunset period occurs where faces/records get automatically deleted after a period of years (5, 7, 10, whatever - maybe set one period for misdemeanors, a second for felonies, a lifetime for convictions involving pedophilia or death, etc).

2) a clear listing of what happened after the arrest must accompany the picture (dismissal, not guilty, fine, conviction, plea bargain, whatever). Some of these sites only list what the arrest was for.

IMHO? If I were ever arrested, and if it were my image on such sites? Fuck it - it would cost too much to chase down every two-bit operator with a web host and a bit of Perl scraping-script (seriously, there's like dozens of such sites out there. The reason why I know all this? I'll explain at the end...) Besides, it's not like a background check would miss such a thing in the first place unless the record was well and truly expunged.

(So, how do I know these things? I happened to find an ex-boss of mine on it after a friend of mine heard a rumor, and discovered the dude is currently in prison for doing things to his daughter that were way the hell wrong. Took four different sites before I found enough of the story to discover what happened. Pity - he seemed a really cool guy, and technically he's sharp as hell.)

Re:The solution is simple.

[mrchaotica]

Won't they just say "we didn't defame you, we just quoted what somebody else said?"

Re:The solution is simple.

[Penguinisto]

Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.

...no, but it'll add one hell of a sum to the total lawsuit.

Re:The solution is simple.

[DNS-and-BIND]

I think you're confusing cause and effect there. It's not because these people got arrested that they have poor work prospects. It's more like that sort of behavior got them in trouble with the law in the first place.

You want to start a business and hire people with criminal records? Good luck with that one. My Dad hires people out of the halfway house because he's a cheapskate and about half of them are okay. The other half are total fuckups who stop showing up if he's lucky. If he's not lucky they steal from him, come into work drunk or on drugs, or assault the other workers.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Darinbob]

They'll never let you move to Texas with that attitude.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Darinbob]

Or hispanic.
Or middle eastern.
Or look like you're poor.

Re:The solution is simple.

[MBGMorden]

You still missed the point.

An arrest doesn't mean you're guilty. It doesn't mean you even had anything to do with what happened.

You go out in an Old Navy T-shirt and jeans one day and someone wearing the same clothes snatches an old lady's purse. You could very well get arrested because you match the description. Even if you prove that you're innocent of everything but similar fashion choices as a criminal, you still have an arrest record (no conviction, but an arrest). A lot of places will discriminate on that arrest record - even when found innocent. That is not fair, and is by no means an accurate way to gauge the trustworthiness of potential employees.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, right. They're keeping them up for cash. That makes it ok. Right?

Also, let's not forget the good will (or should we talk about the bad will?) generated by the "public service" of posting one of the least recidivist groups of people (note I did not say guilty), those on the sexual offender websites. Good will equals patronage and patronage equals money. There's no halo to be had here and the fact is some of those people are innocent. The system is broken.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

a lifetime for convictions involving pedophilia or death, etc

Why pedophilia?

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

you're assuming quite a bit. in virginia.e.g., you can get arrested for
going 37 in a 25 and sent to jail for 364 days. do you really think
this is cause and effect, or are you willing to grant that this may
be a small amount of carelessness and/or inattention?

Re:The solution is simple.

[Solandri]

If some one would do that with my mugshot in my country he had bad luck. Surprising that in gods own country people obviously have no rights at all and need a new law every year to combat such exploits.

In the U.S., the people have a right to know who's broken the law or been accused of breaking the law. See, way back before the U.S. was a country, the government running the show had this nasty habit of secretly detaining people indefinitely without charges. So I think I'll side with the U.S. on this one. Yeah it sucks that your arrest photos are public, but it's the lesser of two evils.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing how after all this time these primitives have not internalized the core precept of modern jurisprudence, the accused are innocent until convicted.

That's because it's long gone. The actual core precept is "you're guilty because we arrested you, and if we can't prove it, we'll make something up, and even if that doesn't work, you'll be hammered anyway, because arrest records, bitch. And if we shoot your dog because we came to the wrong house, we'll bill you for the bullets, you plebe fuck."

You know why the statue of Justice is wearing a blindfold?

That's so she can't ID the judges and lawyers fucking her in the ass without lube or a reach-around.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Kalriath]

Hang on, so even if found not guilty you're OK with the sites posting up details and slandering individuals? Sounds like you're advocating "guilty until proven innocent - and guilty even then". Boy, do the federal prosecutors have a job waiting for you!

Re:The solution is simple.

[rtb61]

Easy solution, don't pretend to be someone you are not and don't be a bloody hypocrite. How often are those whom are the most embarrassed and humiliated by this, the very same people who attack others for it. Who scream for laws banning others from doing it while they do it themselves.

The best solution is suck it up and bite the bullet, when enough people get busted and the questionable behaviour gets exposed as being the norm people become less embarrassed by. For the lying hypocritical jackass political types, who try to make our lives a misery expose the more and more and more.

If you paying to remove your photo, then chances are you are a hypocrite who as attacked and ridiculed others for that behaviour and well, you deserve what you get.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone went after a Brazilian kid and literally killed the kid with internet bullying. Google "emo indio mutante" images if you want to see some of this. From what I could tell, this drove the kid to suicide. The images are not safe for work, so I will not link it directly.

Admittedly, the kid was going through adolescence and did a few things ( apparently involving synthol ), but I could find nothing that justified what I have seen posted on the net.

He's the one who looks like a big Mowgli from Disney's Jungle Book.

From what I saw, he was a young kid just trying to "be somebody". The more I saw of his life's story, the more despondent and wary of the human condition I became. I thought very few people had that kind of meanness in them to fire off that kind of attack on the net.

I came across his image while researching synthol usage - and was taken in by the expression on his face - as he looked so desperate for acceptance yet finding only hatred. Others dare to be different and get admired... he tries it and others post about chasing him down to beat him.

I will post AC because there are those out there who will find someone to pick on. God help you if you are convicted of internet bullying and I am on the jury.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well someone's questioning his sexuality and lashing out to compensate.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Nehmo]

"Arrest-Proof Yourself"? Note my question mark. Ha Ha.That's closing the barn door belatedly for some of us. Hummmmm......Actually, I began reading. I must say I was skeptical when I clicked the link, but the authors, Dale C. Carson & Wes Denham, laid out a colorful table of contents that drew me in. It's a common sense (2007) book with lots of practical advice. I'm afraid we in the US need such a book. I'm downloading it. Carson's 3 golden rules: "If cops can't see you, they can't arrest you," "Keep your dope at home," and "Give cops your name and basic info, then shut the f*@# up!" I don't understand why people still buy books when you can just get (most of) them for nothing.

Re:The solution is simple.

[CodeBuster]

Even if you prove that you're innocent of everything but similar fashion choices as a criminal, you still have an arrest record

Precisely. That is why Dale Carson suggests in the book that you don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by criminals or at least the street walking kind. A suit and tie combined with neat personal grooming, clean haircut and respectful attitude is best and will buy you much leeway with most police officers, but at the very least avoid sports jerseys and baggy pants and be polite. The better that you look and act like an honest upstanding citizen the less likely the police are to stop or arrest you. If you drive a car, make sure that it's clean and well maintained. The basic premise here is to be the person that you want to be seen as, not the person that the police like to arrest. You might call that profiling and it is, but that's reality. These things are doubly true for young blacks and hispanics who are more likely to be stopped by police than a WASP, all other things being equal.

Re:The solution is simple.

[CodeBuster]

So what's your advice for those who are arrested despite not committing a crime?

Most job applications only ask if you've been convicted of a crime. You can honestly answer no and simply not mention the arrests. If it comes up, don't deny it but explain the circumstances as best you can in a positive way. If those asking believe that it was something that could have happened to anyone, they're less likely to hold it against you. In short, be polite and truthful but don't simply volunteer this information to everyone you meet. There's a better than average chance that it simply won't come up, especially if it happened 10 or more years ago.

Re:The solution is simple.

[BobbieBuda]

Then again, such mug shots are public records. Banning photos of people proven innocent or even perpetrators of non-heinous crimes is a good start though.

Re:The solution is simple.

[mi]

That said, it should be slander to post the records with the implication they mean someone is guilty of something.

To a lot of people (employers among them), having been arrested is the same (or, at best, almost the same) as having been convicted. To me, an immigrant, this was a rather unexpected (in addition to unpleasant) revelation...

Thus, even if there is an explicit statement under your picture, that you were only arrested and spent a mere 45 minutes in jail, while the bond-officer was roused to take the $40 fee for your release — and never convicted at the end — you may still prefer to get your mug removed from such a site.

But, indeed, public records should be just that — public. If FBI can see, who was ever arrested, ordinary citizens should be able to as well... Maybe, as these sites proliferate wider and deeper, Americans finally learn the difference between being accused and convicted and it stops being a big deal...

Re:The solution is simple.

[mi]

you're OK with the sites posting up details and slandering individuals?

Is it slander, if it is perfectly true? Unpleasant, yes, but "slander"?

Re:The solution is simple.

[mi]

So US is not that much different from most communists regimes back in the day - you could live and work there as long as you did not tease establishment all too much in which case they would brand you criminal and make your professional life going into sewer and other such things.

When I moved from the USSR into Massachusetts some time ago, discussing the evil of the Soviet Union I'd usually encounter an Illiberal, who'd nod thoughtfully and state, that, yes, they also had "similar" problem in this country... Asked to clarify, such people would always bring up Joe McCarthy.

It was only years later, that I learned, that Joe McCarthy's efforts made a whopping of, at the most, several dozen people lose their jobs. Temporarily. And yet, all of these sophisticated folks considered him "similar" to the organizations, that caused not dozens, but millions of people to not become unemployed, but to die... And not for attempts to subvert their country towards the most murderous school of thought known to humanity, but for being of the wrong creed (such as descendants of nobility), or even to simply fulfill the quarterly quota of arrests and convictions...

That was when I lost most of the respect for America's "Liberalism" and turned firmly towards the Right...

Re:The solution is simple.

[buybuydandavis]

Yes, that's what we need: more regulation allowing the government to control what we can and can't know.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes perfect sense. A lot of the neofascists we've gotten have been from formerly or currently repressive ex-soviet states. What you and your countrymen do not realize is that:

1. The fact that college liberals are a little confused does not mean that there is not a case to be made for creeping fascism in this country
2. Someone having had their formative years in a soviet republic HAS NO FUCKING IDEA what they are talking about when it comes to politics

Seriously, A fmr. soviet citizen effectively claiming to be all-knowing about repressive governments as you are doing is like a jew claiming monopoly on suffering. You run from one repressive regime to a free(er) country and then proceed to do your level best to turn this country into the opposite of what you experienced, not realizing that both extremes are equally bad.

Dismissing current problems of corporatism and fascism-lite with a cute anecdote about McCarthy shows exactly how little you've been paying attention.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if someone has committed some petty non-violent, perhaps even a victimless crime... at what point should they be free of punishment? Eventually, they "pay their debt to society," as it were... then they have to keep on paying indefinately? I love my country, but I'm really starting to despise everyone in it.

My solution to this problem is to run a website spotlighting the individuals that run these mugshot websites... use every legal means available to destroy their privacy.

TFA, uncharacteristically, leaves the reader with a little hope... that paypal, the major credit card companies and banks are working towards no longer doing business with these dicks. I can't recall any of these institutions ever doing anything so decent before. I am stunned.

Re:The solution is simple.

[CycleMan]

Then again, such mug shots are public records. Banning photos of people proven innocent or even perpetrators of non-heinous crimes is a good start though.

So is how much I paid for my house and where I live, my voting registration, every federal license I've been granted and a variety of other things. But I don't want this all over the Internet accessible to everyone; the professional Big Data corporations are scary enough without having every Tom, Dick, and Harry being able to find out exactly where I live right after I pay for lunch with my credit card, and deciding to raid my house while I'm back at work. Or other crazy-but-plausible hypotheticals.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an even simpler solution: Don't be american.

Socially conscious people lost the fight at this point. Smart money gets out and moves to a less repressive regime like some of the more enlightened European states or, if you're rich, a thoroughly corrupt nation where you can buy your way out of anything. You people don't seem to realize that de facto repression doesn't really have to mean de jure repression. Market forces can compel you in ways the government never could and that perhaps a happy medium where you minimize repression from both is preferrable.

This must be why Mexicans want to go north to the US and why my own country is getting such a large in-flow of US ex-pats. In both cases they more than double their salaries and drastically increase their standards of living.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Ihlosi]

I'm pretty sure the pictures are considered public domain, in the same way that certain other legal information is.

Don't know what the legal situation over there is, but around here, combining a perfectly legal action with a completely legal request can be considered a crime if the relationship between the two is 'condemnable'.

So, posting public domain pictures by itself is completely legal if it's done as a service to the public or something. Posting public domain pictures and then asking for money to stop doing so is crossing into the criminal domain, since there's no legal connection between the action and the demand.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, no?

~five years ago I was arrested by US customs and handed over to the FBI when arriving in the USA (on my own ship). Accused of smuggling drugs and being part of a criminal organisation. As the charges were bullocks I was eventually freed and actually apologised to ("wrong ship, we acted on an anonymous informer" etc etc etc... turns out this happens to sailors a LOT when entering the US..). My photo can still be found on those websites though and as the business I'm in is based on trust (I'm a consultant doing IT network safety for big companies / governments) I loose work on this. Basically I'm being punished even though I did not nothing wrong.

Re:The solution is simple.

[oobayly]

The best solution is suck it up and bite the bullet, when enough people get busted and the questionable behaviour gets exposed as being the norm people become less embarrassed by. For the lying hypocritical jackass political types, who try to make our lives a misery expose the more and more and more.

What about the people who were arrested as they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and subsequently released without charge. Why should their photos be up there, and why should they be expected to pay to have them removed.

The Dutch have the right idea - you're not allowed to publish a person's name or likeness (photo, artist's rendition) unless they have been convicted. It has occasionally resulted in the amusing situation of CCTV stills being published with a box over the eyes, but it certainly stops people's lives being fucked up by the media who will plaster faces on the front page, and then ignore it when they are never charged.

Re:The solution is simple.

[oobayly]

Wait, I have to pay my dues for being arrested? I thought I have to pay my dues if I'm convicted.

Re:The solution is simple.

[davester666]

They work around it being extortion by having two companies, one publishing the pictures, and the other offering to work for you to assist in removing the pictures [with no guarantee]. Cops would need to investigate and prove that the two companies were working together to extort you.

Maybe the NSA could help with the investigation...

Re:The solution is simple.

[davester666]

Yes, that's the ticket. Everybody should get arrested and have their mugshot on these sites.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best solution is suck it up and bite the bullet, when enough people get busted and the questionable behaviour gets exposed as being the norm people become less embarrassed by. For the lying hypocritical jackass political types, who try to make our lives a misery expose the more and more and more.

What about the people who were arrested as they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and subsequently released without charge. Why should their photos be up there, and why should they be expected to pay to have them removed.

The Dutch have the right idea - you're not allowed to publish a person's name or likeness (photo, artist's rendition) unless they have been convicted. It has occasionally resulted in the amusing situation of CCTV stills being published with a box over the eyes, but it certainly stops people's lives being fucked up by the media who will plaster faces on the front page, and then ignore it when they are never charged.

Not only Netherlands, most civilized countries don't have the US practice of publicly shaming people who might be innocent.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Kalriath]

If the person did not commit a crime, er, yes. Yes it is.

Re:The solution is simple.

[kermidge]

Congrats on move from Soviet place, and welcome.

I have little truck with labels, parties, ideologies, etc. It takes most of my feeble energies trying to find and develop a picture of what happened, how things were, and how things are.

I try to start with science where appropriate, then scholars and historians (and trying to separate wheat from chaff, understand the bias of those with an axe to grind, is non-trivial), then on to paying close attention to people directly involved. The latter is why I pay particular attention to comments from those overseas and to those who've lived under significantly differing circumstance, so I thank you for that.

Over the years I've found that it is hard for those who have little history, who haven't known survivors of the various totalitarians' camps, and who haven't troubled themselves with trying to learn some about what they comment upon, to have views that are worth paying a whole lot of attention to, other than as a barometer on common thought. Half the time I'm in the same boat, and can only claim to try.

Another way to put it, if somebody comments on fire, I'll pay more attention to someone who's camped out, lived rough, or an old-school Scout, and less to a prof, shopkeeper, or admin.

Re:The solution is simple.

[kermidge]

How does common confer meaninglessness? Also, it's not so much a matter of humiliation as it is having the fact of a mug shot being used as a social weapon.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late for you.

Re:The solution is simple.

[kermidge]

Nope, just somebody who enjoys the language.

I also think that sometimes phrasing things differently can carry better precision or connotation. It also may help to avoid getting stuck in the rut of, say, a 1500-word core vocabulary.

I am not in school, haven't an editor, enter no contests, and at my age don't much give a shit so long as I can get a point across or ask a question. I don't generally try to give offense; if someone takes it that's their act, not mine.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And I thought /. was populated with atleast a few thinkers..."

Alas, furloughed.

Re:The solution is simple.

[goose-incarnated]

you're OK with the sites posting up details and slandering individuals?

Is it slander, if it is perfectly true? Unpleasant, yes, but "slander"?

In this country we have no slander laws; libel covers everything (speech, writing, publication, etc). And yes, it is libel even if it is true - the defense against libel is that the allegations have to both be true as well as in the public interest. Both those have to hold in order to defend a libel suit. Celebrities are considered to be items of public interest, btw.

Re:The solution is simple.

[bestalexguy]

The simple solution is to press extortion charges against websites that offer to take down pictures of the subjects for money.

Suppose I legally own private images of a former girlfriend, which I kept private as I should. Suppose she and her husband wish to take possession of those images, including any copies in my possession (I state no one else has copies, and this is true). Their lawyer submits a proposal to me, which includes monetary compensation for my time and for voluntarily giving up something which I legally own. If I accept, am I at risk of being charged with extortion?

This said, public release of unconvicted arrested people is barbaric. Having said also this, one must note that there's a strong lobby who defends criminals against their potential victims and their right to defend themselves. This includes the knowledge, for instance, that your new neighbor is a convicted sex offender.

Re:The solution is simple.

[celle]

If you haven't been convicted of a crime then the 4th amendment should still be in full force. Destroy the problem at the source. The 4th says something about protection of your person that includes pictures of you. If it's about you, its your data regardless of who collects it. Under that definition law departments would be prohibited from distributing pictures of you unless convicted and those rights are removed. So much for rights being inalienable. That information should also go away after time served. As for the various lists, they should be dealt with as cruel and unusual punishment as they follow you for the rest your life outside of your actual punishment.
        All of this legal BS just guarantees that if a cop tries to arrest you just kill him and as many others as you can since you have nothing to lose. You are not going to get your life back regardless so if you're going to go, go with gusto if just to get even with the bastard that triggered the ruining of your life. After just a few hundred instances(about a weeks worth given current arrest rates) the police forces would be worn down to where they won't have the manpower to arrest people on frivolous shit and won't even think of anything more violent if they plan on existing the next day.
      And in conclusion to the idiots that say don't break laws. You do realize we have a national congress, state congresses, and localities full of lawyers and other unmentionables that do nothing but pass laws. You can't breathe/fart anywhere without breaking some law. What we need is a legislative system that passes laws on public need and not on bribes. And those that vote have to actually write and present the laws and accountable for their decisions. That way our 'representatives' might actually have to 'work' for a living.

Re:The solution is simple.

[goose-incarnated]

My gut reaction is that I would like it to be a crime, but it may be difficult to establish in law.

Not difficult at all - threatening to do something completely legal unless someone pays you is still blackmail!.

Re:The solution is simple.

[GbrDead]

> a book called "Arrest-Proof Yourself" which basically makes the argument that individuals should do anything they can (within the law) to avoid arrest

Another similar guide by Chris Rock (from a different point of view): How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police

Re:The solution is simple.

[BemoanAndMoan]

If you paying to remove your photo, then chances are you are a hypocrite who as attacked and ridiculed others for that behaviour and well, you deserve what you get.

What an insanely vapid rant, on literally every single point you made.

I've never had a cause to worry about this, but the undertones of patheti-sad rage in your middle-school English rant seem to indicate you have some pretty deep-seated issues, though I cannot fathom how this topic triggered them. How you can so blithely validate extorting people who a) may not have been convicted of anything yet, b) may actually be innocent or even c) if guilty, will be punished within the confines of the accepted legal system, of which public humiliation has not been a meaningful component since the stocks?

These are absurd leech sites serving no purpose other than to earn money, and survive on the backs of the lowest form of smug, self-satisfying losers who get off on having a list of faces who they can finally point to and shout, "see, there are people lower on the totem pole than me!"

Ah, wait ... I think I just figured you out.

Re:The solution is simple.

[bmuenzer]

In Germany you can be punished with up to one year in prison for publishing a mugshot: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/kunsturhg/BJNR000070907.html http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/201a.html

Re:The solution is simple.

[PPalmgren]

And in some cases, arrested because someone is illegally abusing the legal system. For example, a revenge lawsuit after a breakup for stalking, fabricated by the mother and daughter. It didn't happen to me, but I've seen it happen. The mother has a history of abusing the legal system and is doing it for her daughter. Regardless of it getting dismissed as nonsense, the mug shot is plastered everywhere and the first google of the guy it happened to is about an arrest.

Re:The solution is simple.

[mi]

A lot of the neofascists we've gotten have been from formerly or currently repressive ex-soviet states.

Funny, you'd call me a Collectivist, when Individualism is exactly why I came to this country.

Re:The solution is simple.

[gnasher719]

They're putting up *ALL* booking photos. Even those who are innocent. Your solution would work if nobody was ever wrongly arrested.

I remember there were sites in the USA putting up pictures and addresses of doctors performing abortions. _Probably_ not so that people would send them flowers for doing a good job. When there was some public outrage about it, a Dutch website published all the info in the name of free speech. However, they also added info about many anti-abortionists. Without telling who was who, so that the risk of receiving a letter bomb would be fairly shared.

Re:The solution is simple.

[gnasher719]

An arrest doesn't mean you're guilty. It doesn't mean you even had anything to do with what happened.

A while ago there were photos published of a woman arrested for a robbery in a store, identified by the store detectives, and almost convicted - side by side with a photo of the woman who actually did the robbery. I wouldn't have been able to keep them apart. She was totally innocent and lucky to not be convicted.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Slashdot Parent]

Most employers are going to conduct a criminal background check, and the data will come from the courthouses themselves, not Google.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Slashdot Parent]

As a result, many people (but especially black males and LNWI's, or Low Net Worth Individuals) are relegated to a lifetime of poor employment prospects, unable to land jobs even as burger-flippers. This is true even if these arrestees are innocent!

I don't know how other employers are, but for me, I don't give one tenth of one hoot if someone was arrested for protesting something in college. You've got to do something way more serious than that for me to notice.

But for anyone who was arrested for a violent crime, I can't really hire them. If I hire someone who was arrested for rape and he goes on to rape another staff member, you can bet that I'll be sued into oblivion for exposing the victim to a known rapist. So it's a little tricky from the employer's perspective.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not just quoting, they are actively providing a forum for people to make those statements. IANAL, but that would seem to be an important distinction.

Re:The solution is simple.

[JesseMcDonald]

And yes, it is libel even if it is true - the defense against libel is that the allegations have to both be true as well as in the public interest.

The truth is always in the public interest. Certainly more so than ignorance, censorship, or disinformation.

It is worth noting that the level of insanity in libel and slander laws varies between jurisdictions. Your falls somewhere between truth as an absolute defense (as in the US) and legally-enforced propaganda. Even the US system falls well short of actual freedom of speech, or even just the fundamental principle of proportional response. Fortunately, attempts to suppress speech through the courts tend to backfire spectacularly, even if you manage to win.

Re:The solution is simple.

[interval1066]

Most employers are going to conduct a criminal background check, and the data will come from the courthouses themselves, not Google.

Ultimately, employers are people, not machines. One of my friends was recently told by a prospect that they weren't interested, despite a pretty stellar career. One thing that's been happening in his life is a an ex gf has for the past 3 years been conducting an on-line smear campaign against him. He suspects this is why he didn't get the job. I'd post links but that only increases his google hit score to those sites, so, just take my word for it. Where was your courthouse god in that case?

Re: The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose I legally own private images of a former girlfriend, which I kept private as I should. Suppose she and her husband wish to take possession of those images, including any copies in my possession (I state no one else has copies, and this is true). Their lawyer submits a proposal to me, which includes monetary compensation for my time and for voluntarily giving up something which I legally own. If I accept, am I at risk of being charged with extortion?

No, but if instead you posted them on your website with a contact blurb that says you'll accept Visa or PayPal if she wants them taken down... you bet your ass you are.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Extortion hasn't necessarily been committed. That's why Oregon had to pass a law protecting people proving themselves innocent. Of course, it's probably too late by then. This is an ugly truth of the internet and humans in general: there is no morality. There's calculated risk of retaliation for sure.

And before you get all creamy with rage, of course there are legitimate reasons to post pics of actual criminals. But how about a little "innocent-before-proven-guilty" mentality. Globally. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

No the best solution is to make it fashionable for everyone to post really good photoshops of mugshots of themselves. Create enough white noise and bury the signal. Journalists can always got to the valid source if they need it.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Slashdot Parent]

Obviously I can't read the mind of the hiring manager who passed on your friend, but hiring decisions can seem arbitrary at times. Maybe some other candidate was a better fit for the team or had previously tackled the exact same situation that the team was currently facing. There are any number of legitimate reasons that an otherwise "stellar" candidate might get passed on.

For the sake of discussion however, let's assume that the employer passed on your friend based on the online bile spewed by a mentally unhinged ex. Would you want to work for someone who makes hiring decisions based on previous work experience or one that makes those decisions based on unverifiable online rumors that come from obviously biased sources? If the decisions was made for the reasons that you claim, your friend dodged a bullet.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Hatta]

That is why Dale Carson suggests in the book that you don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by criminals or at least the street walking kind.

Uhuh. What you really mean is, "Don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by young black men".

The better that you look and act like an honest upstanding citizen

If you want to look and act like an honest, upstanding citizen, you certainly don't want to dress like a banker.

You might call that profiling and it is, but that's reality.

Yes, and the reality is that our police and justice system is racist to the core.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Hatta]

The solution is to ban discrimination based on prior arrests. Make the accused, but unconvicted a protected class. And then enforce that protected class status. Run stings against employers, landlords, credit agencies, etc. (as we should be doing for other protected classes...).

We can stop this behavior without criminalizing free speech, or damaging government transparency. All it takes is for the people to decide they want a country that treats people fairly, and to enforce laws in a way that treats people fairly. But no, we'd rather have a justice system that persecutes sluts and brown people than one that treats people fairly.

Re:The solution is simple.

[goose-incarnated]

And yes, it is libel even if it is true - the defense against libel is that the allegations have to both be true as well as in the public interest.

The truth is always in the public interest.

No. If this statement, taken on its own, were even remotely true then there would be at least a single jurisdiction that would agree with it - not even the US with its myriad of state and federal laws believes that the truth is always in the public interest.

As a simple counterpoint - the US government believes that some things, even if true, is not in the public interest. A more detailed counterpoint is this: is it really in the public interest to know the preference of all the sexual activities of an individual? Should we we say "the truth is always in the public interest" and then force homosexuals to come out of the closet? Your argument says "Yes. You should not be sued for dragging someone out the closet even though they do not want to be dragged," while other jurisdictions (basically everywhere in the world other than the US) says that the individual who has been dragged out the closet can actually sue, unless of course they are in the public interest.

Re:The solution is simple.

[angel'o'sphere]

Only as long as he is lawfully convicted. And only for so long as he is in arrest. After his punishment is over he has the right to be a free man as any other man.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

You reminded me of a story from my dad who was a police officer. Back in the 70's, he was on patrol on a very quiet Sunday morning just before 7:00 AM. A call came in about a robbery and the description was that it was done by some guy dressed in purple pants, outlandish yellow shirt, outrageous hat, etc. My dad and his partner spotted the guy and picked him up. Based on how the guy was dressed, they had no doubt they had the guilty party. (Or so they thought at the time.) They arrested him and called it in then started bringing him back to be processed. About a minute later, another car called in saying they had the guy. My dad and his partner couldn't believe it. Apparently there were two of them dressed exactly the same way in a small area of town at a time when there shouldn't be two of them running around. Needless to say, they had to sort it out at the station later on.

Re:The solution is simple.

[Reziac]

Hmmm... so, if they keep your mugshot up, they should have to pay you for it. Great idea!

Re:The solution is simple.

[Reziac]

Thanks to the plea bargain system, there IS no functional difference between being accused and being convicted.

Re:The solution is simple.

[someSnarkyBastard]

And what country do you live again, pray tell?

Re:The solution is simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are guilty the minute you are arrested.
Forget the innocent until proven guilty crap.

Re:The solution is simple.

[__aaltlg1547]

When you press criminal charges, your attorney is the District Attorney. You are paying him through taxes.

Re:The solution is simple.

[tingentleman]

This is free market capitalism at it's worst. Why not create a website featuring the mugshots of the people who run these sites, with a critique of why they are such morality free capitalist douchebags?

Re:The solution is simple.

[rtb61]

What an insanely vapid rant. You of course are representative of the typical hypocrite, who likes to target other people whilst indulging themselves in the same behaviour. My comment represents a complete lack of interest in those mug shot sites, a complete lack of desire to target people for the mistakes they have made and a complete dislike for the hypocrites who do the opposite. You are so blatantly apparent, hmm, pseudo celebrity issues.

Re:The solution is simple.

[CodeBuster]

Uhuh. What you really mean is, "Don't dress in clothing that is commonly worn by young black men".

Yes. The goal of the book is to help you avoid being arrested. Achieving that goal may require certain adjustments in dress, grooming and attitude on the part of the reader to be most effective. These are practical matters, not political ones. The book doesn't concern itself directly with politics although it can be seen as a critique of the methods commonly used to evaluate the performance of uniformed police officers in the US.

If you want to look and act like an honest, upstanding citizen, you certainly don't want to dress like a banker.

When was the last time you saw a man in a suit and tie standing spread eagle over the hood of police car while being patted down for drugs and weapons? Avoiding an encounter with the police is the first step in not getting arrested.

Yes, and the reality is that our police and justice system is racist to the core.

All the more reason to take care in how you conduct yourself in public. The irony of all this is that many of the very same people who support a powerful and centralized government to regulate business, raise taxes and increase social spending seldom think about the unintended consequences of granting more power to the state. They complain about loss of freedom and racial profiling without making the connection between their advocacy for more government and the loss of personal freedoms.

Re:The solution is simple.

[RockDoctor]

That's assuming that the person really was convicted of the crime and the picture was officially released or otherwise searchable through traditional means.

TFS specifically states that it's about arrestees. People who have been arrested, and possibly charged, but not yet tried and certainly not yet convicted.

I believe that America has a system called "the courts" where the process of trial and sometimes conviction occur. That's not the police's department. Literally.

Say "Cheese"

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd like you to smile while we have our hand out to try to take advantage of you now that you're trying to get your life back on track.

I wonder how many of these site operators have a mugshot if their own?

Copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple solution is to distribute these images with stipulation that they may not be used in any commercial manner, whether to charge to display them or to remove them. It's the ultimate "free" distribution.

Re:Copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

This would work if the entire internet was in the United States. The sites will continue to operate, just from some other country that doesn't give a damn about the license that the photos were released under.

Re:Copyright?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, a media organization could not post them -- esp. if they charge a subscription (WSJ, NYT for example)? Transparency is good in a democratic society.

Perhaps the answer is to put all criminal records, including all resolutions, in all jurisdictions on line except when expunged. Some degree of redaction, under judicial review, could be done to avoid interfering with ongoing investigations. Perhaps redaction approval is good for 12 months or a lesser time as decided by the judge - if police need, they can apply for renewal. This way, there's no need to look at the pictures, just look at the actual records and these sites would lose their economic value.

Re:Copyright?

[nbauman]

The simple solution is to distribute these images with stipulation that they may not be used in any commercial manner, whether to charge to display them or to remove them. It's the ultimate "free" distribution.

There are legal restrictions on using somebody else's picture for commercial profit without their permission. You can't use John Lennon's picture to sell beer. Whether it would work for a booking photo of someone who was not convicted (or convicted of a minor crime) is something that lawyers are working on.

Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sites are perfectly legal"
The sites are and have never been legal in Sweden.
You can not just say it is legal when its not true. Why do slashdot post these articles?

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has never been a Swedish web site. You can not say it is a Swedish web site when it is not true.

Re:Not legal

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's the American obsession with mugshots. Again, something the rest of the world will never understand. Here in .cz, you'd be probably thrown into jail for spreading such photos in the first place.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sites are perfectly legal"
The sites are and have never been legal in Sweden.
You can not just say it is legal when its not true. Why do slashdot post these articles?

Any time Europeans accuse Americans of being stubborn and pigheadedly ignorant, I just come back to Slashdot and look for any article whose comments feature Europeans whining because they utterly refuse to recognize when an article regarding US news is posted on a very clearly US-hosted, US-staffed, US-centric website. That makes me feel better. It's reliable, too, since there has literally been no time in the past ten years of Slashdot where I couldn't find an article on the front page whose comments fit this criteria. Hell, most of the time it's one of the first three on the site, even with filters on.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, it's the foreigners obsession with being pretentious assholes.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

Re:Not legal

[radarskiy]

If we Americans stopped being pretentious assholes, maybe foreigners would stop being obsessed with us.

Re:Not legal

[wisnoskij]

Extortion is illegal pretty much everywhere.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, a self-hating American. You're an even bigger pretentious asshole.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

So maybe /. should stop posting stuff not related to US stuff.

Re:Not legal

[real gumby]

It's the American obsession with mugshots. Again, something the rest of the world will never understand. Here in .cz, you'd be probably thrown into jail for spreading such photos in the first place.

Actually, it's an important civil rights issue. Arrests are public as a way of preventing secret arrests, which were used in pre-revolutionary time and, sadly continue in many places. Its origins lie in the sixth sixth amendment to the United States' constitution, which tries to guarantee a swift and public trial as a check on the police, the public prosecutors and the judicial system.

Sure, it's not perfect. The system can and is being abused by jerks (but then again there are jerks in every country). The "perp walks" that cops do are also an exploitative use of a tool designed to rein them in. And I suspect the prohibition on secret arrests has been violated from time to time :-(. Not to mention a arrest is something most people would not like spread around (I wouldn't!).

But don't condemn the obsession with public mugshots without understanding their purpose.

Re:Not legal

[Lumpy]

You live in a free country, here in the USA things are not that way.

Re:Not legal

[Lumpy]

Not when the police does it. It's 100% legal when performed by your local, state, or federal law enforcement.

You are confusing laws for you compared to what they have to abide by.

Re:Not legal

[wisnoskij]

The police are not the ones doing the extortion here.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

and little assholes like you are our bitches. Get that lipstick on you, and Squeal like a pig for me.

Re:Not legal

[Lumpy]

Who released the photos? the police.

Re:Not legal

[petteyg359]

Look, it's the insecure American doing name-calling.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Another funny thing we have here - you can use truth as an affirmative defense for defamation. That is, if I say you were arrested for child buggery, and you sue me for defamation, and I prove that in fact you were arrested for child buggery, you are going to lose your case.

Actually the best defense for this is to have a common name, where the odds of anyone you care about stumbling upon the image would be small, even with a search for John Smith (unless they were searching for your name + crime, in which case they probably already know).

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. In most of Europe you can't defame people, even if you are speaking the truth. In most of Europe defamation trumps freedom of speech. Here in the USA you are not free to sue people for slander unless they are actually lying.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a big difference between

- it's available in the town hall, and you can check then out
or
- you can wget all, country-wide and have your own copy in a matter of seconds.

Re:Not legal

[Hentes]

I think the conflict isn't as much about public arrests but about a clash between free speech and privacy rights. In America, you can take a photo of someone and distribute it without their consent. This is limited in many other places. There's still footage of arrests, but the faces have to be blurred out on TV.

Re:Not legal

[houghi]

Arrests are public as a way of preventing secret arrests

So there are no secret arrests?

I do understand the purpose and it isn't working. The disadvantages outweigh the advantages by a serious margin.

In the rest of the world where people are innocent until proven guilty, they are also have some privacy. This because privacy should be a right, not a privilege.

Re:Not legal

[wisnoskij]

And who invented the Camera they were taken with?
Alhazen, obvious a ringleader in this Muslim extortion plot.

Re:Not legal

[real gumby]

If you had quoted more of my comment you would have included my point that yes, secret arrests occur, but they are fortunately extremely uncommon. A lot of the outrage (such as it is, which sadly isn't enough) over FISA is its secret nature, and what has resulted from it.

There are many many problems with the system at large, don't get me wrong. Plea bargains seem like fundamentally abusive, and are illegal in most countries. "Civil forfeiture" is a top to bottom abuse. One could easily go on, and go ahead: feel free to work on these issues.

My point is simply that the origin of public arrest is a good one, it does seem to mostly work properly, and that it's the abuses that should be addressed, not the public nature. If we had magical cops who only arrested guilty people it wouldn't be needed. Since they don't exist, this is the best check we have,

(By the way: answering an AC's response to my comment: yes there is a qualitative difference between wgetting the records in bulk than having to go into the basement and copy them down one by one. I don't think that is a bad thing though -- life was much worse when abuses could be hidden because finding out was hard, or because access to information was essentially restricted to a secret elite).

Re:Not legal

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's right. In most of Europe you can't defame people, even if you are speaking the truth. In most of Europe defamation trumps freedom of speech.

Anything to substantiate this claim? Such as, an in-depth analysis of the few dozen national laws on that matter? No?

Re:Not legal

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Another funny thing we have here - you can use truth as an affirmative defense for defamation.

I fail to see the relevance to the matter at hand (widespread distribution of personal photos without the consent of the photographed subjects), but this is something that all decent countries have, including mine.

Re:Not legal

[Deadstick]

The police are not the ones doing the extortion here.

No, we have a new name for it these days: plea bargaining.

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Herp Derp much?

Re:Not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is a place for in-depth analysis? I think not. However here is some off-hand analysis. The term "Libel Tourism" exists.

OK, "most of Europe" is a stretch.

Re:Not legal

[Falconhell]

Don't be too harsh, he is only 12 and has been in moms basement for a long time. Americans are so funny in their paranoid delusions!

Re:Not legal

[yacc143]

Actually, secret arrests are explicitly allowed by the PATRIOT act, aren't they?

Re:Not legal

[spire3661]

No there is not. Welcome to the Information Age. The biggest difference here is your perception vs reality.

Re:Not legal

[spire3661]

As part of due process. The need for openness in this matter trumps privacy.

Re:Not legal

[celle]

"his because privacy should be a right, not a privilege."

      Actually it is a right written into the constitution and directly specified by the it's writers in other works. That said it's been completely paralyzed by bad if not illegal laws, corner casing precedence, and court(supreme included) gaming.

May work for states, not feds

[tepples]

Distributing photos of arrested persons under something analogous to a Creative Commons non-commercial license may work for states. It at least won't work for federal police agencies such as the MPDC and the FBI, whose works enter the public domain upon publication.

USA

[tepples]

The sites are and have never been legal in Sweden.

Read the featured article and discover that many states of the United States of America do not ban this practice. Even the summary has clues to the jurisdiction: "Georgia" could be a former Soviet republic, but "Utah" is a U.S. state.

Re:USA

[Seumas]

Not only are there websites in the US, but we have actual print publications (some put together by the websites) in the US that are available at news stands and contain nothing but recent mugshots. It's pretty hideous. It's one thing to have someone's mugshot on television or in a paper, because it is relevant urgent news, but it's another to have every person who has ever for any reason been arrested, such as for being at a rowdy party with a bunch of people and then being released later, after you'd been processed and found not to be part of the rowdy group. Or have been a case of mistaken identity (like a couple decades ago, when my uncle was arrested because he looked exactly like a major counterfeiter in the region that they'd been looking for). Or even people who are guilty and maybe even convicted of small crimes. Just because it is a public record isn't justification in and of itself that it should be plastered all over.

I feel kind of gross whenever I see some site (hell, even popular major news sites like CBS affiliates or FOX websites and so on) that does a "look at these ridiculous mugshots!" or "look at how ugly the people in these mugshots are!" link-bait galleries. It's just fucking disgusting and feels wrong, even if the only benefit is clicks/views. I have never understood how we are "okay" with this.

Expunged record?

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, Georgia has some of the strictest drunk driving laws and your record is never expunged. What this means is once your mugshot is online, it will be copied to other websites and you'll never get it down. I'm actually pleased Google is doing something about this, though I would prefer mugshots not be public record in the first place.

Solution: Don't have a unique name

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is to have a common name such as "John Smith" or "Jane Smith". There are probably dozens of people by that name in any particular city or town. Someone (like a prospective employer) searching your name on Google will not know if a mugshot photo is you or just someone with the same common name.

If you have a unique name...well, your screwed.

The solution is simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop automatically thinking people are criminals because they were arrested. Wake up and realize that you are living in a police state where anyone can be arrested at any time because a cop wanted to. A friend of mine was pulled over for running a stop sign and the cop asked to search his car. Of course he said "no" so the cop arrested him and took him to jail for running the stop sign, which allowed him to search the car "incident to arrest." This crap happens all the time in Texas.

Re:The solution is simple

[Anonymous Coward]

An HR department might not think people are criminals because they were arrested, but given that there's a higher chance they could be criminals HR might decide to eliminate them from the pile of applications (assuming they have a big pile of applications).

If there are few applicants they may not do that but might not be the case when times are hard.

Trade sanctions

[tepples]

[Blatantly infringing photo] sites will continue to operate, just from some other country

That's what SOPA was supposed to be for. But even without SOPA, copyright owners could do the same thing the RIAA is doing: work through the US Trade Representative to threaten foreign governments with trade sanctions for violating the Berne Convention.

Common names have their own pitfalls

[tepples]

Someone (like a prospective employer) searching your name on Google will not know if a mugshot photo is you or just someone with the same common name.

On the other hand, having the same as a criminal can still confuse human resources departments who assume that the person whose name is on the application is the same person whose mugshot is on the site, provided the skin color matches. It's happened with the no-fly list, and it's happened with a 4-year-old rapist.

Re:Common names have their own pitfalls

[SpaceLifeForm]

That also happens with the name. You apply for a job, they search for your name on various sites, your name shows up, your app goes in the trash. The clueless HR person does not bother to note that a match on the name is not a match on the person. And it is way too difficult for them to use a middle initial, or even a location match. Nope, first and last name shows up, you are automagically disqualified.

Re:Common names have their own pitfalls

[Anonymous Coward]

Man I feel sorry for Bob Smith. They think he has committed every crime in the book.

Why don't they just copyright the mug shots

[chromaexcursion]

A simple copyright stamp would solve the problem.
The pictures are still public and any one can see them.
However permission would be required for use. Use could be stipulated as part of that.
Requires some administration, but the other solutions do as well.

Re:Why don't they just copyright the mug shots

[Anonymous Coward]

A simple copyright stamp would solve the problem. The pictures are still public and any one can see them. However permission would be required for use. Use could be stipulated as part of that. Requires some administration, but the other solutions do as well.

Yeah, copyright has fixed so many problems recently.

3rd party solution

[ThreeGigs]

Contract with 3rd party photographers to take the pictures, with a suitable license agreement (perpetual use by police/courts/etc.). Let the photographer sue for unlicensed commercial use by other sites.

The problem will be solved rather quickly.

Re:3rd party solution

[ColdWetDog]

And why would our local police want a 3rd party photographer (whom they would presumably have to pay) to take the pictures? It's not like these things are carefully set up with hair lighting and a nice background. It's a mounted camera on a wall. They tell the perp to stand there and somebody pushes a button.

On newer digital systems, you don't even have to hold the sign.

Re:3rd party solution

[l0ungeb0y]

This is a fantastic idea -- every photographer I've ever met can certainly afford the court costs and legal fees to take on sites such as these.
Hell they have entire legal teams! I can't believe no one has ever thought of this before.

Quick -- you better go patent your idea!

Re:3rd party solution

[Gavagai80]

Sell the camera on the wall to a third party. Doesn't require a third party human to be present for the photo to be their property.

Re:3rd party solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The police are paying somebody. Unless it's a small town, the pictures are probably not taken by an actual police officer (badge, gun, arrest power) anyway. You are just changing who does it. That being said, I doubt you could get around public record laws that easily.

Legal/Illegal in the USA is irrelevant

[schwit1]

US laws are meaningless if the web site is hosted and managed by somebody outside of the USA.

Re:Legal/Illegal in the USA is irrelevant

[Seumas]

It's kind of cute that you believe US laws have no relevance outside of the US. We totally don't read your email or listen to your phone calls, either.

Re:Legal/Illegal in the USA is irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it backwards. US laws have no relevance inside or outside the US borders to those in charge. US laws have no relevance outside US borders.

Ya, but...

[fahrbot-bot]

... if they ban mugshots, then only criminals will have them. :-)

Throw them in prison

[Anonymous Coward]

But as legislators draft laws, they are finding plenty of resistance, much of it from journalists who assert that public records should be just that: public.

I call BS. If public records are public then present a permanent wall of shame, for the public good.

But OTOH if you present a wall of shame until you are paid off by the guilty rich then it is not operating in the public good and is extortion plain and simple. Those running such sites need to be sent to a Federal prison for 25 to life.

Re:Throw them in prison

[sjames]

And, of course, get their mugshot posted call over the internet.

This is irrational

[moteyalpha]

I am guessing this has little to do with morality and more to do with gaming the search engine. If they paid for ads it would be different. This is as absurd as people who want an erase switch for the internet. I want the feature from "Asylum of the Daleks" that erases my name from the collective human consciousness. Motey who? Some seek fame or infamy and others shun it. Slashdot should charge us to delete stupid comments from their servers. The only problem is that I keep making the same mistake. Doh!

Why do governments post this stuff anyway?

[GodfatherofSoul]

An arrest isn't an indication of guilt. Can you imagine being falsely accused of something like rape or murder, never being even charged, but having a "Rape" mugshot following you around?

Re:Why do governments post this stuff anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also why the names of those accused of rape should be suppressed until (unless) they are found guilty of that offense.

It is right that we protect the names of alleged rape victims.

However there are way too many examples of men accused of rape only to be found not guilty. And I don't mean "not guilty" because of some loophole in the law: I'm talking about situations where the alleged rape victim has been caught out lying, or trying to extract revenge, etc.

Re:Why do governments post this stuff anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

men accused of rape only to be found not guilty

You realize, don't you, that being "found guilty" does not prove you committed the crime. What it almost always means (if you go to trial) is that you were unable to prove otherwise and the prosecutor had the legal chops to pull you down on that basis; other than that, it typically means you were railroaded into a plea bargain with extremely powerful threats. There are plenty of people out there who were convicted of crimes they did not commit. That's (just one solid reason) why the idea that it's "ok" to post name / mugshot etc. of supposed criminals is bullshit from the starting line. Another, of course, is that it obviates the whole idea that one can pay one's debt to society. That idea has become as lost as buggy whip manufacturers. It's all about endless retribution and creating a permanent, hopeless underclass. Every time one of you self-rightous idiots posits that it's ok to do "whatever" to criminals post-punishment, I want to throw up. You're a bunch of sick puppies, you are.

I bet the wrong VIP's mugshot got posted

[GodfatherofSoul]

...or his kid's. Nothing changes in this country unless someone rich, famous, or powerful is affected. Google was saying just a few months ago they didn't care at all about this stuff.

Re:I bet the wrong VIP's mugshot got posted

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't even change then. They just flex the rules and get their specific case "fixed" and leave everyone else to be screwed.

This sets a concerning precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

we already know google wields a lot of control that can make or break a business, but modifying their site's core functionality to specifically harm businesses they disapprove of crosses a red line.

Re: This sets a concerning precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous coward- you forget that Google is a private company, and it can do whatever the hell it wants to with skeezy mugshots websites.

What's wrong? This upsets you because perhaps you yourself are in on this racket?

Should these be public record at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

What value to society do these pictures actually provide? I suspect very little. If you were to search for your neighbors you might find some of them there. You may even find that a few of them are sex offenders. But does any of this knowledge actually increase your safety or that of your family? I'm inclined to doubt it, especially the knowledge of sex offenders in your midst. Many, many people who commit crimes in their lives never reoffend. The arrest and/or conviction is a wake-up call for them and they change their ways enough to stay out of the criminal justice system. Furthermore, for many offenses, the chances of a reoffense is very low, particularly sex offenses, contrary to popular belief. Furthermore, the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by people who have no record of a sex offense. aSo, is there any real reason that any arrest or conviction information should EVER be put in the public domain in the way it is given the real harm it can do.

An arrest or a conviction can unfairly keep a person from getting a job, getting a promotion, or getting an apartment. In the case of sex offenders, sex offender registries can lead to and has on many occasions has led to vigilante killings and violence. We as a society have an interest in helping those who have made mistakes in their lives to rehabilitate themselves. Not being able to leave where you want or work where you're qualified is not in the interest of society. Thus, mugshots and other criminal justice system information should not be in the public domain and not available for public review.

If you're wealthy you move

[rsilvergun]

There's even a name for it: "White Flight". Wealthy people don't live near sex offenders and violent criminals. That's for the poor and middle class.

Slippery slope

[CanadianMacFan]

So now Google is modifying their algorithm to change the rankings based on how a business runs. Are we going to have to know the business ethics of companies in order choose which search engine will bring up the best results for us? I think that search results should be neutral at least as far as ethics of the people running the search company. Is Google going to slow down the response time to these sites for it's fibre customers too?

I don't agree with what these sites are doing but I think Google setting a dangerous precedent with this action.

Re:Slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

They have been doing this all the time for a long time. They specifically try to avoid spam, adult content, phishing sites etc. This is nothing new, and is standard practice. They specifically have targeted similar sets of sites by refusing to sell them ads (they enforce strict content rules if you want their ads). There are all various mixes of trying to defund/cripple things they don't like and trying to hide things their users don't want to see. This is also related to their personalized search results and the whole "filter bubble" problem.

If google really wanted to, they could mark sites as containing malware, then all the browsers which use their safe browsing feature by default (which is most browsers, Chrome, Safari and Firefox) will intercept people's attempts to visit them with a big warning. I'll leave the issue on how google "safe browsing" could exploit partial hash matches to silently track who goes to particular urls for another discussion.

Happy Ending?

[Anonymous Coward]

So yeah, the people running these sites are scum...

But if you click through all 4 pages of the NY Times article, you discover that the attention that the reporter brought to this issue while talking to the likes of Google and the payment processors (MasterCard/Paypal) has started to cut the legs out from under them. Google has started taking countermeasures, and the payment processors have started dropping these types of clients.

Without their blackmail sites getting search results, and without an ability to process payments from the extorted, these roaches are getting less traction.

Yes, this is a problem, and part of the issue is (not surprisingly) when you digitize public records, you lower the bar to these types of activities. But just because its legal doesn't mean that private entities (such as search engines and payment processors) have to endorse/support these types of practices.

So, at the end of the day, yay for the 4th estate? Good for the private entities for not aiding and abetting douchebags? And Legislators are still scrambling to be relevant, and talking about passing new laws to address mugshots, instead of fixing the fundamental issue - what was reasonable for "public records" when you needed to do the legwork to dig this stuff up, isn't when someone can start mining the data wholesale and start building their own NSA-style database on private citizens (yeah, I'm looking at the three major US credit/background check agencies.) That fly-by night grifters are exploiting this capability for their own ends is just a *symptom* of the problem, not the problem.

Better solution: truthful disclaimer

[pikine]

Make it legally required for mugshot sites to display a prominent warning along with the image, stating that a mugshot does not necessarily imply charges or conviction or criminal record. Google can also voluntarily display a statement to that effect if the image algorithm can tell it's a mugshot.

The main problem is when people mistake mugshots for what they really are. Just fix this problem. It doesn't impinge journalist right to publish.

If you look at it this way, the mugshot sites are obviously up to no good. Since criminal records are also public record, the responsible way to disclose mugshot is by making the actual criminal record or the absence of the record available. And if you've seen their ads, they clearly insinuate that mugshots represent a person's criminal history but that is a lie. Not all lying is illegal, but the law could indeed enforce truthful disclosure without running afoul of the First Amendment.

Re:Better solution: truthful disclaimer

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this could work if the booking jurisdiction were required to put that warning on the original mugshot and it were also required that any republishers put up the mugshot in full, unedited.

Post my photo and try to blackmail me, I dare you

[Anonymous Coward]

I AM a convicted felon.

I don't care who knows it.

Try to blackmail me and I will feed your fucking liver
to my pit bulls.

Work pays off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank to the work of Norman Haga and the group that he works with, this has become possible. Norman Haga and his group have been working on this issue for two years. Now they may be able to lay down and get some rest.

Not only are the mugshot websites being demoted in the serps, but Mastercard, Paypal, and American Express are terminating payment arrangements with them and the mugshots takedown/removal websites and operators.

"On Friday, Mr. D’Antonio of JustMugshots was coping with a drop in Web traffic and, at the same time, determining which financial services companies would do business with him. “We’re still trying to wrap our heads around this," he said. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/business/mugged-by-a-mug-shot-online.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1

Well one thing to note about copyright in the US

[Sycraft-fu]

Is all works of the US Federal Government are, by law, public domain. This isn't to say that something can't be done with regards to mug shots (and they are generally not federal anyhow) but just FYI with relation to copyright and ownership. You'll see a lot of pictures on Wikipedia that note they were taken by a government employee in the course of their job, which makes them public domain.

My autistic sister has her mugshot online

[MillionthMonkey]

The cop she lived next to didn't know she was autistic, and when someone kicked his screen door he assumed it must be her and had her booked on assault and vandalism charges. A judge ruled within hours to let her go and expunge her record, but those sites have her photo all over the place.

Re:My autistic sister has her mugshot online

[FuzzNugget]

Something is seriously wrong with a society that criminalizes people with disabilities because it doesn't take the time and compassion to understand them.

This sort of unforgivable xenophobia was characteristic of the Nazis. America is just doing the same thing under a different guise (though the difference is shockingly small).

Re:My autistic sister has her mugshot online

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, its only a matter of time until the SS starts monitoring and recording our phone connections.

Re:My autistic sister has her mugshot online

[ToddInSF]

When ever someone throws around the word "nazis" you know you're reading something a 12 year old posted...

Why are we protecting google?

[crossmr]

Wasn't one of the protections for google being a search engine the fact that it was indiscriminate?
All it did was use robots to report information that was out there.

With all the massaging of search results and removing of links and other things it's becoming increasingly obvious that google can and will modify those results on a direct basis rather than simply giving "search results"

I think that whatever protections they've enjoyed under the various IP laws and I'm sure other kinds of laws where their defense is "we're just returning results" should be removed and let them battle it out in courts with the various entities affected.

Re:Why are we protecting google?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly, they use the "we're just returning results" when it suits.
the problem is that the MPAA and other similar crap will say, then ban all torrent sites as well, and so on.

BS, Google is only adding to the problem

[MrEdofCourse]

This blurb is different from the article. I don't see in the article what Google itself is doing to correct the problem. To me, it seems simple on their part, just band justmugshots.com and whatever other domains are being used. That's what I was hoping to see, but nope, the Do Know Evil company is still not only including mug shot sites in their image search results, but they're unjustifiably highly ranked.

Here's my problem...

My name shows up in image search results. Great here's what "first_name last_name" looks like. However, the top results are a bunch of mugshots. Ok, so I've made sure my actual image is properly SEO'd and linked to from a bunch of sites, but still, the mugshots are showing higher ranked images (of not me, but people with the same name and in some cases they look similar).

How are the mugshots so highly ranked? Are people really sending inbound links to them? I don't think so, but even if they were, Google should be banning these domains.

And no, this wouldn't be censorship... besides being a company and not the government, Google wouldn't be preventing the sites or the information from being available, but simply doing two things:
1) Justifiably punishing sites that obviously broke the rules in terms of SEO.
2) Protecting people a little bit more from being extorted.

Re:BS, Google is only adding to the problem

[afgam28]

It's in the article, but you have to click through to page 4.

Google’s team worked faster than Mr. Friedenfelds expected, introducing that algorithm change sometime on Thursday. The effects were immediate: on Friday, two mug shots of Janese Trimaldi, which had appeared prominently in an image search, were no longer on the first page. For owners of these sites, this is very bad news.

TMZ

[Anonymous Coward]

What will happen to TMZ if they can't post celebrity mugshots? A conviction is news, but so is an arrest.

Are we going to ban publishing the names of people arrested? I suppose no one is allowed to mention O J Simpson's murder trial since he was acquitted.

Google's unbounded power

[RalphSlate]

Doesn't anyone find it troublesome that a private company (Google) is the one deciding whether this should be permissible? A private company, not democratically elected representatives, is deciding if this speech is protected or not? And that private company has the power to make or break the companies doing this?

Don't get me wrong - I don't think that posting booking photos should be legal, and I think that our representatives need to work on the issue of digital memories, where a stupid mistake made a long time ago can affect you for the rest of your life due to the availability of digital records. However what if Google quietly decides that it won't return valid results for people searching for certain computer algorithms which might let people compete with them? Or refuses to return results for certain colleges that it decides aren't good enough? Or decides to exclude certain authors from its index because generally speaking, people don't like them?

No company - unaccountable to the public - should have such power. Sure, you may like what they're doing with their power now, but they are already showing signs of turning their power away from what is good and onto what makes them the most money. Watch out.

Re:Google's unbounded power

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like that, go get your Goverment to make a search engine like Google so that more of those nice laws, acts, restrictions and protections apply. But do the taxpayers want to pay for that?

Otherwise private corps and individuals can choose to carry/promote/demote whatever speech they want on their property as part of their own rights.

Re:Google's unbounded power

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO, this has less to do with the "availability" of digital records and more with the fact that they are searchable and easy to copy, and that apparently, regardless of being innocent (note I did not use "found innocent", considering everybody is innocent until proven the contrary) these kind of photos are being taken and made public.
nevertheless, I totally agree with you.

Re:Google's unbounded power

[entrigant]

Unless we regulate them. Corporate entities have only the rights we the people wish to bestow and allow. This smells very much like a common carrier type issue.

Google is becoming meddlesome

[Trax3001BBS]

I don't log onto a site unless I have to, then log off when I'm done, keeps the tracking down a tad.

I have two Youtube accounts Googles aware of. Yesterday I logged in to do some work on the videos
and joined Google+. I don't want to be part of Google+, I've no interest in the "social networks".
I've changed the settings to send no Email my way and keep from displaying my actions, but
don't wish an account I want no part of. Took me 4 years to finally get out of Facebook,
an account I started but never did anything with.

Youtube videos have always been in the lowest resolution as I've no cookie to remember a setting,
no big deal. Now all of the videos are muted as well on all browsers.

Youtube has a lot of full length movies, I have a PS3, A HDTV, and a Motorola Xoom tablet that can access youtube.
I wanted to watch Dogma http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwZ8fw6AIzQ on the HDTV, I can't.
The searches never came close; even spelling them out word for word, there are quite a few I can't access.
The links can't be accessed by any thing but the PC, no way to enter them or the PS3 reverts to a Youtube program that can't find them either.

I've started downloading the videos transferring them to each device; the start of my inadvertent youtube movie collection.

Re:Google is becoming meddlesome

[ruir]

I have exactly this problem, the Mac can access youtube videos which I cannot see in the iPad and Apple TV.

The mugshot sites make it

[p51d007]

easy to see if someone has been ARRESTED, but they don't show CONVICTIONS. Everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty. Most states have a freely accessed database of court proceedings, which you can put in someones name and look at the entire court record, from the first appearance to final guilty/not guilty to any jail time, or fine. The problem with mugshots sites is they only show an arrest, not any convictions, and by holding people hostage, those should be shut down.

Google ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I will no longer get ads for these sites when I visit finance.google.com?

Cookies

[SgtChaireBourne]

It's not enough to log out, you have to wipe the cookies, too. Google sets a lot of them and then there are Google-related sites like Youtube which also set Cookies. I'm not sure how much these other sites share Cookies with Google, but I wouldn't trust them on it.

Re:Cookies

[Trax3001BBS]

It's not enough to log out, you have to wipe the cookies, too. Google sets a lot of them and then there are Google-related sites like Youtube which also set Cookies. I'm not sure how much these other sites share Cookies with Google, but I wouldn't trust them on it.

It's much more than not logging in to block tracking, just one step. Web Beacons are the concern logging in or reading html email.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_beacons running a huge a$$ HOSTS file is also very important.

Ever hear of flurry http://flurry.com/ https://top.robtex.com/flurry.com.html#records
that's a biggie to block. It's Google analytics, for a price they provide advertisers
user demographics and what ads to send to you.

Mostly used for mobile devices Flurry.com will let you opt-out if you give them your device ID.
http://www.flurry.com/user-opt-out.html every time I change the OS on my rooted Xoom tablet the ID changes
so I block it at the router level (just got a new router with firewall). Also your device ID isn't all that easy to find.
- for Android > play.store look for: Device ID

Read the ToS, Privacy Policy at http://rovio.com/ it explains in detail what angry birds does with your collected data.
One is they send your info to Flurry.com who in return sends them prospective clients.

----

Here's a good one... Read the ToS at http://flurry.com/ you'd never know it was Google.
I registered at http://testmy.net/ to keeps a data base of my connection rates; of course I read their terms of service,
it led you to https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/?fg=1

There was a thread about tracking I happened on after my registration, the operator of that site
replied to the thread mentioning he was very happy to be working for Google, it was a good company.
I replied that it's odd your so up front about being part of Google yet one would never know through the ToS
http://flurry.com/ was Google as well. Now reading the ToS you'd never know http://testmy.net/ is part of Google. :}
unless you went to Robtex.com https://top.robtex.com/testmy.net.html#records

Yes Google provides a service and expects something in return, they can have my searches and the links
I visit, as I find them through Google. But I don't need Google+ shoved not only in my face, but into my lifel
Google+ isn't a service it's totally different.

How many secret arrests?

[dutchwhizzman]

How many secret arrests are made exactly and how do you know they are extremely uncommon? Every single missing person could be one of those secret arrests for all we know. A secret arrest to prevent an ongoing investigation from revealing "the police are onto them" to the bad guys makes sense, but you should put a limit to the amount of time an arrest can be kept secret.

In the Netherlands, people get wrongly arrested too, but the amount of arrests here is way less than in the USA. I'm not completely up to speed on the exact regulations, but the police doesn't have to give information about an arrested person except to their next of kin here. If a journalist were to come ask who got arrested, they'd only get the age, gender and domicile of the person(s) arrested. If a next of kin were to come and ask if so-and-so got arrested, they'd have to prove their relationship to the person and would get a yes/no answer. Usually, the police would allow you more than your one phone call to get a lawyer and they themselves would take it upon them to find your next of kin and inform them, unless you requested them not to do so yourself. This tends to work fairly well. Privacy is protected a whole lot better, secret arrests aren't possible any more than under the USA system and there's a lot less fuss about the whole deal in general.

I've said so before and I will say it again. mod me down if you feel you don't agree with me, I don't care. If the people of a nation don't trust their government, they should do something about their government, not come up with silly laws to make sure they can defend themselves against their own government. Don't say you need to bear arms to defend yourself from a corrupt government, or you need everyone's privacy obliterated to make sure the government doesn't secretly arrests people. It's useless, they have better guns and make secret arrests just the same. You need to stop electing the people that aren't representing you, but only themselves and the corporations that sponsored them. Any politician or political party taking campaign funds from any corporation should not get a single vote. Any individual putting more money than regular membership fees into a political party should be prohibited from doing so. It is inconceivable to many Europeans that the USA voters are willing to vote for anyone that allowed themselves to be "bought" that way. It may sound strange to Americans, but by doing this and giving a (humble) governmental subsidy to parties to fund their campaigns, you are making democracy a lot more plausible and believable. Apart from that, you'll rid yourself from a lot of annoying commercials in the process.

Re:How many secret arrests?

[spire3661]

We didnt come up with the second amendment ( the right to bear arms) out of thin air. It was after long and careful examination of the history of governance. You make it sound like there is no rock-solid logical arguments for the way we do things.Please feel free to explain why you think our Founding Fathers were wrong on the concepts of individual liberty and distrust of government.

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

who the fuck uses that CIA NSA ridden horse shit?

Who cares?

[Hypotensive]

So some website has hundreds of mugshot photos up on their site. What kind of person is going to be interested in leafing through those the whole time? I can't see how they could generate any interest whatsoever, let alone enough that you risk being shunned by anyone you actually know.

Branding?

[jandersen]

Why not just brand criminals like cattle? I don't know, a star of David on their face, something like that? Cut off an ear or a hand. These practices have been banned in all Western societies - in fact in all englightened societies - not least because of the idea that punishment should be limited in time, and in proportion to the crime committed.

Putting somebody's photo on a website like this is in effect very similar to branding; just think how difficult it is to get rid of the stupid pranks you put on Facebook when you were a teenager - and the consequences that can have. It is about fairness - about getting a second chance in life. Most people have, after all, done things that could have given them some sort of criminal record, had they been found out. Would you like to be branded for life just because you were a stupid teenager who felt compelled to prove that you "dared"? There is a big difference between getting a slap on your wrrist and having your hand cut off.

Re:Branding?

[mjwalshe]

But you should also mark all those who have worked as Journalists (or been to J school) with a J on the forehead so we know not to trust them

Public record should be public.

[Anonymous Coward]

Public record should be public. But that does not mean they should be made easily searchable. make the mugshot only database searchable and downloadable by law enforcement. Everybody else can get a photocopy by queueing at the police station, putting 50 cent in a photocopier and getting a copy the old fashionned way.

No surprised about hacks

[mjwalshe]

Journalists (and their rich and shadowy owners) just love to be able to monster (ie destroy their reputation/life) those who they disagree with - see how the daily mail is treating Ed Miliband.

Re:Well one thing to note about copyright in the U

[angel'o'sphere]

Does not change the fact that the person on the foto should have "personal rights" on it. I only pointed out that in other countries such fotos usually are not public domain anyway.

Police State Entrepreneurship

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a logical outcome of living in a Police State where "reality" shows are the dominant form of entertainment. Fortunately, I've reached the age where I don't give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks of me.