Time to address the privacy issue?

In previous articles I explored the murky world of the Scam sites, such as Scam.com and Scamfraudalert.com and how they are allegedly mixing scam complaints with defamatory statements about companies and then refusing to remove those posts because of the traffic it garners and, of course the ad revenue.

The whole issue for companies that are defamed on scam.com and scamfraudalert is that by not removing posts that are untrue, they are just stealing genuine traffic from the companies concerned. Think about it for a second. If you want to benefit from someone else’s advertising, stick their name on a scam site. The crooked scambusters generally end up on the first page of Google so they are bound to get clicked. Hiding behind all sorts of privacy systems is a standard practice to keep the sites from being sued for defamation and for publishing personal and copyrighted information.

Up until now, however, although the articles appear well read (over 1000 views) there was no real debate and no real comment as, I am guessing, people view companies who market their services on the net as fair game. The problem will only reach serious debate when individuals and small corporates are affected, and we may have that now from a site that is, in our opinion, not intended to be anything other than an information site.

The site is called aboutus.org and it is stirring the blood of the most vociferous defenders of freedom of information on the web. The site is, essentially, a wiki of companies on the web. The problem is that because its crawlers populated the wiki from whois information it has become like a reverse whois database. Aboutus have said that they have now changed the crawler and it is not so intrusive but a quick look around Aboutus show that it does act as a database for information that people, perhaps do not want splashing over the net.

Take our favourite scamsters scam.com the information on aboutus.org gives us all sorts of details:

It tells us this is their address:

Rua Correia Teles, 28 A, suite 106
Lisbao, , Lisbao 1350-100 Portugal

and it tells us this is their phone number and email:

09098 940 984 dnsadmin@scam.com

It also tells us that 'yougiveloveabadname' is a related web site (at the same address) and several porn sites with names too graphic to mention.

Now the scamsters may not want their information published like this on the web but it appears that, for a change, they are on the receiving end of alleged 'traffic nabbing'.

People are not happy and various sites are popping up against aboutus.org. One such site is 'stopaboutus.org'

Stobaboutus.org have posts such as this one from '69khz'

"I am tired of trying to opt out or delete when it don't work. I am tired of emailing the thieves demanding they delete all pages referring to 57 of my websites. They like to hide under fair use, HOWEVER, the fair use clause is IRRELEVANT as they're committing THEFT to STEAL the authors SEO & traffic for profitable gain.

Next, there are NO FAIR USE clauses for TRADEMARKS. My corporation will be filing 57 counts of copyright infringement as well as several dozen trademark infringement lawsuits. We will be demanding 75 Million PER INFRACTION. Case will be heard in US District Court, Boston, MA.

'btmanmeh' put its well

"I don't mind people being able to Google my name and find my website, since I write a lot of technical how-tos I want my website and me credited for the work, but I don't care if they post my how-tos elsewhere. I'm a huge advocate of open-source software so it's my contribution back. BUT, I don't publish my address, phone number, and a map to my front door which is what angered me the most about the website."

Ray King, the owner of Aboutus.org was called by one of the forum users on stopaboutus.org. When questioned about harvesting information from Whois he said "But this information is already publicly available". The argument seems to be that people know this information is already public but a domain name needs to be entered first. This is a similar complaint aimed at scamfaudalert.com who routinely post whois information on their site, which seems to enrage the victims of this particular tack.

'btmanmeh' makes his point further in the post "Think you're okay now that your site has been removed from aboutus?
TOO LATE, once that page has been indexed by the search engines, the info is available using a search engines "cache" option and other methods such as wayback. Really...WTF is he thinking. He just doesn't seem to understand the gravity of the connection he's making on his website."

This seems to be the issue that is gaining momentum with those concerned about privacy and especially with the scamster sites like scam.com and scamfraudalert.com and that is that technology these days is that by publishing personal information on the net it is a threat to individuals.

Imagine where this is all going. Mix up hate sites, scam sites and whois and it is only a matter of time before some nutcase uses this information to kill or kidnap someone. I for one have banned my son and daughter from putting their emails, pictures or any personal information on the web for fear of where the information age is going. I try to kill any personal information that appears about my name on the web, the only thing I have been unable to get rid of is something I posted 10 years ago when the web was more innocent and I was less guarded. Are we going to see the scam sites and those that publish private information closed down.. I doubt it, not when aboutus.org has just got $1mn of funding.... Maybe the owners will uses this to refine, what is essentially a good idea, into something a little less irritating. By the way...isn't Google already the wiki of all wikis, isn't another layer of searches just silly?... I am off to build my wiki of wikis wiki....$1mn anyone....?