California Man Arrested for Running 'Revenge Porn' Website

cold fjord writes "Yahoo reports, 'A California man was arrested on Tuesday on accusations he ran a 'revenge porn' website, one that featured nude pictures of women often posted by jilted or angry ex-lovers ... The San Diego arrest, the latest action by the state to crack down on such websites, comes after California Governor Jerry Brown signed a first-in-the-nation law in October specifically targeting revenge porn. The law defines revenge porn as the posting of private, explicit photos of other people on the Internet to humiliate them. But authorities did not charge 27-year-old Kevin Bollaert under that law, because it is geared to those who post the incriminating pictures and not those who run websites that feature them .... Bollaert's site, which is no longer operational, had featured over 10,000 sexually explicit photos, and he charged women up to $350 each to remove their photos, officials said. ... Bollaert was charged under a California identity theft law that prohibits using identifying information of a person without their permission, and under anti-extortion legislation, according to court documents. Unlike many other revenge porn websites, Bollaert's site had required users post the photo subject's full name, location, age and a link to the person's Facebook profile, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.'"

Comments

He could get out of the charge

[Russ1642]

He should turn over all of his submission records, in essence handing over the information on hundreds of men who could be charged for posting the photos. They would probably offer him quite the plea deal if he were to do this.

Re:He could get out of the charge

[TheCarp]

Assuming its illegal.

There is a big difference between what they did and what he did. What they did is, generally, a huge breech of trust but.... that doesn't mean it is or even should be illegal. When it comes to personal relationships, sometimes the state really should say "My name is paul, this shit is between you all".

In the end, whether a particular upload would be an infringement or not would depend on context. I know women who have posted nude pictures of themselves or let others post pictures of them online. So you can't really just blanket assume its a violation.

How about situations where a man posts pictures online of his wife claiming they are swingers looking for more partners. We can't assume its with or without her knowledge out of hand, it could be either. she could easily turn around in a divorce and claim to have not known.

This isn't even academic, I KNOW people who have had problems like this where a divorce got messy and one side tried to use events out of context. Seriously I had a friend tell me his wife was really kinky and wanted him to have her sign a "slave contract" (not unusual in certain circles)....then a year later is telling me how she gave the contract to her lawyer to use as proof that he was really controlling.

If that was the worst of the things I have seen people in fights with their ex do, that would be one thing. One friend of mine had to go through all sorts of hell fighting his ex over custody; even having to deal with her making false abuse claims with DSS. (we are still waiting to see the hammer drop on her for that since DSS has closed the case saying there was no merit to the claims)

Relationships are messy business. Right or wrong, its usually best to stay out of them whenever possible. Unless there is "welfare of a child" involved (which admittedly can be the messiest) its best to just stay out and tell people do deal.

Yet it does seem like there should be some recourse here, maybe a civil offence for people to use after other means of dealing with it break down? I dunno, but it should be somewhat targeted to prevent abuse of the statute.

Re:He could get out of the charge

[girlintraining]

It is a wonder he isn't being slapped with federal charges of extortion.

Not really. California has a long and inglorious history of trying to turn itself into its own country -- second only to Texas in it's zest for trying to co-opt, twist, and otherwise manipulate federal law. See also: "This product is known to cause cancer in the State of California." They also have the highly controversial three strikes law that results in infinite prison. As if you needed more proof California's justice system was completely off the rails than them creating laws inspired by sports games.

But, it's not a surprise the feds aren't getting involved -- they generally only become involved when the state penalty would be less than the federal penalty. In this case, it's very clearly more. The federal justice system would probably have him serving considerably less time than infinity for his crime.

As an aside, while I think what this man does was clearly anti-social and he should be punished... a prison sentence in excess of what I would get if I poured gasoline on this man and set him on fire for posting a naked picture of me on his website, I do not feel is fair. His crime was non-violent. Hate-motivated? Yes. Poor taste? Absolutely. Attempting to profit on the misery of others? Yes. But not violent. At least in my book, violence is worse than non-violence, pound for pound. And if we're going to say this guy should be punished for extortion like this, where's California when it comes to their business leaders? A lot of banks have headquarters over there...

Re:He could get out of the charge

[girlintraining]

The will of the people should prevail until you disagree, right?

You cannot expect sound judgement from a population that averages a 5th grade reading comprehension and nearly 7% believe that lizard people secretly control the government... or aren't sure. I'm all for democracy -- when the general population is educated. California is one of the most populated states in the country, and also one of the least-educated overall. The results are, well... exactly as described.

The people are morons. Why do you think the electoral college was created to begin with? Direct democracy is usually a disaster and which is precisely why it's been so rarely used by governments past and present. These initiatives were also sponsored by the same people who put a lot of money into the campaign funds of the lawmakers they allegedly were over-ruling. So no, this isn't about your ad hominid that *I* am disagreeing... it's quite plain that California is off the rails. If you want to point fingers at why, be my guest... but the majority of the rest of the country wishes it would hurry up and slide off into the ocean. We even tried giving California back to Mexico over a hundred years ago... they wouldn't take it.

Re:Hey Mr. "Open Book" anonymous jackass

[Xaedalus]

Very few things in life are worth challenging the weight of reality behind the GIFT theory... freely-given private pictures of boobies from happy female friends and lovers are one of those things. This is WORTH FIGHTING FOR.

Re:Kinda, sorta extortion. Maybe...

[TheCarp]

Actually I question if either is really blackmail, but if one is, then both seem to be to me.

Here is why: blackmail is generally about revealing information that is secret. As was pointed out in an objection to the concept by some libertarians: it is legal to gossip or to threaten to release secrets; it is only illegal to offer to not release them for some benefit.

The thing is, this is not about release of public info, this is about continued availability. The info was already made public, this is "pay me and I will hide it"; which isn't really blackmail is it? However the point is: Its blackmail even if the threatened action is otherwise legal (though this likely varies from place to place, wikipedia has some good examples of how it differs).

So.... it seems to me if "pay me and I hide this embarrassing info, which is already published now" is blackmail, then it is blackmail whether its nude photos or public court documents.