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Jeweler Forged Judge's Signature To Force Google To Kill Negative Reviews (thedailybeast.com)

A sapphire salesman is facing jail time for forging a judge's signature in a case involving Google. Kelly Weill from The Daily Beast reports: Michael Arnstein is the third-generation owner of the Natural Sapphire Company, a Manhattan-based jewelry business. After a falling-out with a former business partner, Arnstein's company amassed dozens of negative reviews, which featured prominently in the Natural Sapphire Company's Google search results. Arnstein sued the former business partner in 2011, accusing him of writing defamatory negative reviews, and a judge ordered the partner to delete 54 of the negative comments. But some negative reviews remained, even after the court order. So Arnstein copied the judge's signature and forged new court orders of his own, demanding that Google scrub negative reviews from his company's search results, Arnstein admitted in a guilty plea on Friday.

12 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. What could possibly go wrong? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forging the signature of a judge to circumvent the checks and balances of the legal system. What a simple idea. There's absolutely no way that that could go wrong - after all, court orders aren't logged in a central system; the recipient of the order can't check back with the court to verify it; and it couldn't possibly come back upon the forger.

    Right? Right?

    1. Re:What could possibly go wrong? by geekmux · · Score: 2

      Forging the signature of a judge to circumvent the checks and balances of the legal system. What a simple idea. There's absolutely no way that that could go wrong - after all, court orders aren't logged in a central system; the recipient of the order can't check back with the court to verify it; and it couldn't possibly come back upon the forger.

      Right? Right?

      Criminals are stupid. He simply wasn't stupid enough to make his crime worth it.

      Generally you find that level of stupidity and arrogance in the banking and auto industry where it's a job prerequisite for executives...

  2. Negative brand equity by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When a company has a bad reputation, and customers avoid it, it has negative brand equity, and the brand is worth less than nothing. The simple and obvious solution is to change the name of the business, or start a new business and transfer the assets. This would have likely been far cheaper than paying legal expenses and then slowly rebuilding the brand upward from Death Valley.

  3. Re:Hey! by GrumpySteen · · Score: 2

    If your goal is to commit an easily detectable felony and get sent to jail for it, then yes, it works.

  4. Is there a problem here? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The guy did something illegal and is now going to jail. To my mind, the system worked as it’s supposed to in this case.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Is there a problem here? by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The guy did something illegal and is now going to jail. To my mind, the system worked as it’s supposed to in this case.

      Does it have to be a problem for it to be interesting?

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  5. Don't Mess With Judges by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, bad reviews are terrible for a business, and often unfair. Lawsuits are usually the wrong way to respond to those, and positive reviews from satisfied customers are usually a great way to respond to those--but lawsuits are an option if someone keeps making illegitimate complaints and it hurts your business enough, or if someone is using them to harass your employees, for example.

    You know what's not an option?

    Forging court orders.

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
    1. Re:Don't Mess With Judges by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      There's a world of difference between defamatory and just plain negative - he won the case to remove defamatory reviews, and almost certainly wouldn't have a case for removing simply negative reviews.

      So he didn't bother with the case.

      The judge said "delete 54", not "delete all", and there was a reason for that - a reason this guy obviously disagreed with.

    2. Re:Don't Mess With Judges by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 2

      User reviews are suspect to begin with.

      I can't tell you the number of great shops I've been to that have had really terrible reviews posted.

      * A guitar shop I frequent had a 1 star review posted (because 0 stars are not possible) because the owner asked him to get control of his kids. Ernie is a nice guy, but not the most socially graceful, and I could see him cursing. So the guy went off in his review about how bad a person the shopkeep was, never once thinking "Hey maybe having unsupervised children in a guitar shop isn't the best idea"

      * A mechanic I use because he's incredibly honest (he's the only guy who will tell you "nah you've got another 5k miles in those tires," won't upsell you, or otherwise prevent you from wasting money had a review posted about how he was a thief. I found this kinda crazy especially because of the honesty of the guy. Turns out they left their car unlocked and something disappeared from it. Because the mechanic was the last place they went it must've been the mechanic who stole it.

      * A lady bought some guitar strings from me on ebay. Total cost? $10. My ebay auctions specifically state handling can take up to 5 days because I'm busy, and she didn't have a clear address. By the time it was fixed and I got to the post office it was day 5. Still in terms, she left a ranting review full of curses because I "wasn't worth a damn" because shipping took so long and also that "it should never take more than two to three days to receive a package." Really incredible seeing as she's on the other side of the country.

      Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are people who equate "I liked it" with 5 stars.

      Statistically reviews should be a bell curve, but really you have to look into them to find out if in fact they're correct.

  6. Re:Reputation management by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seems a good portion of that field hovers right on the border.

  7. Re:I expected much more ... by Khyber · · Score: 2

    " there are no native valuable Irish Gemstones."

    Bullshit. Aquamarine is found in Ireland. Gem-quality Fluorite is found there. Opal is found there. Amethyst is found there. Topaz is found there.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  8. Re:Stereotypes can be accurate by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    (((Michael Arnstein))) (((Jeweler))) Why does this stereotype write itself?

    Some races criminals are prodominantly petty crime while others are white collar crime. A few have an even mix of both.

    Any "race" can have criminals.

    As for the stereotype you are whining about, you need to go and study some european history to see why it is traditional for people of the Jewish persuasion to be working in the jewelry and financial sectors. At one time that was the only careers they were allowed to have.

    Hint - its another dumbass thing in the holy babble about who is allowed to make loans to who.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.