Tell the FTC: Craig Brittain Should Not Get a Slap on the Wrist for his Revenge Porn Site

February 27, 2015 Involuntary Porn, IsAnybodyDown No comments

Last month, the FTC announced it intends to enter into a consent agreement with Craig Brittain, the operator of revenge porn site “Is Anybody Down?”  Brittain pretended to be a woman on Craigslist to deceive women into sending him nude photos, mocked their pleas to remove the photos, then concocted an ‘independent’ but fake lawyer — “David Blade III” the “takedown hammer” — to extort them into paying $250 to remove the photos.

Since then, Brittain had the chutzpah to try to use copyright law — the same law he claimed didn’t apply to him — to try to get Google to delete references to the proposed settlement.

The FTC is currently soliciting comments from the public as to whether they should vote to accept the consent agreement.  They should not.  The FTC should proceed with litigation against Brittain for the reasons below.  While I am skeptical that the FTC will reverse course — the initial vote was unanimous — additional public pressure may sway the Commission.

These are, briefly, the reasons why the FTC should void the agreement and proceed with litigating its complaint against Brittain — and why you should send a brief comment of your own:

  1. Brittain’s victims are numerous and unlikely to speak up.  Comments submitted to the FTC are public.  Brittain’s scheme was a gamble that victims did not want to be associated with having nude photographs of themselves.  It is unlikely that victims will be willing to speak up and make a permanent and public record of that fact.
  2. Brittain should not be allowed to walk away with extortionate profits, and should instead be required to pay his victims back.  Britain claimed to be making upwards of $4,000 per month from his site.  He has since claimed that the FTC declined to impose financial penalties because he was able to prove that he wasn’t making money from the site and that he is too impoverished to make payments.  Yet Brittain also claims to be making “six figures” annually and claims to have recently purchased a luxury BMW to support Gamergate (somehow).  Brittain is lying either to the FTC or to the public.
  3. The FTC’s action is likely to deter further justice.  Brittain’s scheme was successful because he bet that his victims would pay a relatively modest sum in order to avoid the embarrassment of approaching authorities or attorneys.  As the FTC has now taken action, it is unlikely that any other agency — state or federal — will be motivated to hold Brittain accountable.  Those who copied him, however — including a homeless man — face years in prison.
  4. The evidence against Brittain is devastating.  From the Craigslist catfishing to the “David Blade” extortion scam, the public evidence against Brittain is overwhelming.  With little effort, the FTC could seek PayPal and banking records which would likely establish, beyond any standard required by law, that Brittain was the recipient of extortionate payments made to “David Blade”, the “takedown lawyer.”  Brittain’s story is impossibly contradictory and continues to unravel.
  5. The consent agreement will do little to deter revenge porn site operators, and the consent agreement largely requires Brittain to do only what the law already requires him to do.  Given victims’ fear of public criticism, it is unlikely that few are still willing to step forward to law enforcement, if they can find an agency willing to listen to them at all.  While California has taken initiative to target these sites, the vast majority of local, state, and federal law enforcement often view revenge porn sites as outside their jurisdiction — if they have the resources to identify the sites’ operators at all.  Site operators, in turn, now know that they can continue to extort, shutter their sites, and walk away with the profits — facing, at most, an agreement that they not do what the law already prohibits them from doing.

Public comments may be sent to the FTC up until this Monday, March 2, 2015, and can be sent online by clicking here.  If you’re at a loss for words, here’s some suggested text that you can copy and paste or modify to your leisure:

I oppose the proposed consent agreement in the matter of Craig Brittain.  While I applaud the Commission’s willingness to address exploitative scams like those perpetrated by Brittain, the proposed agreement permits Brittain to walk away with the profits he procured under fraudulent and extortionate pretenses.  Brittain’s brazen conduct should be squarely addressed and he should be required to disgorge his profits and return them to those who believed they were hiring an attorney (or independent firm) to remove their nude photos.  The proposed consent agreement does not do that.  Instead, Brittain is permitted to simply agree not to do what the law already prohibits him from doing while not admitting anything at all and, worse, makes a profit.  The Commission should withdraw from the agreement and take the appropriate action.

Or perhaps you disagree and think the FTC’s action is the right thing to do.  The argument can certainly be made that this ensures that Brittain will not resume his site, and the FTC’s argument that the practice was deceptive puts operators on notice.  Regardless, you should let the FTC know that this is an important issue.

And please share this by clicking here:   Share on Facebook and share on Twitter.

Reddit Revamps Privacy Policy, Leads The Way In Shifting “Revenge” Porn Landscape

February 24, 2015 Uncategorized No comments

Over the past two months, the so-called “revenge porn” issue has seen a rather dramatic development, as operators of roughly half of the dedicated involuntary porn sites (that is, sites which exist solely to allow people to post nude photos to harm another) have been convicted, will likely be convicted in the next few weeks, accepted plea agreements resulting in prison time, or settled with federal authorities.  While there are a few significant sites remaining, and continued efforts of law enforcement are necessary to shutter them, their days may be numbered.

But the practice is not limited to these sites.  Rather, other forms of social media are co-opted: photos posted on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and so forth are not only increasingly likely, but potentially more damaging.  On a ‘dedicated’ site, an individual would be subjected to an anonymous audience (and usually extortion), but it was somewhat less likely that friends, family members, employers, and other acquaintances would see the photos.  On social media, however, the results are immediate and more personal: the social circle around the victim sees the photos within minutes or hours. 1

The question, then, becomes one not necessarily of law (i.e., the operators of involuntary porn sites being arrested for peripheral offenses like extortion), but of policy.  How do social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (which are, like ‘dedicated’ sites, exempt from most liability due to CDA 230) prevent or remedy this type of abuse of their networks?  Of course, as the sites are largely exempt from liability due to CDA 230, they don’t have to do anything at all, but this approach would yield criticism.  As Yahoo!’s CSO recently noted, “[w]e can’t tell people not to take intimate photos. We need to make that safe because that’s how people are using the technology.”

Reddit is taking the right — albeit not perfect – approach.

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Notes:

  1. I’m drawing some big black lines lines in a gray area here, of course.  Some sites may provide the same anonymous mass audience, which perpetrators may utilize to impersonate their victims and harness strangers to do their stalking or harassment for them.  See, for example, the case against David Elam, who is alleged to have impersonated an ex-girlfriend on Craigslist and OKCupid to solicit strangers to visit her home. ↩

Hunter Moore Takes Plea Deal, Will Go To Prison

February 18, 2015 Uncategorized 3 comments

Hunter Moore, the infamous involuntary porn kingpin who was facing trial in March, has agreed to plead guilty two felony charges: one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(c)) and one count of aggravated identity theft (18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1).)

The violation of the CFAA — commonly referred to as ‘hacking’ — carries a minimum two year sentence, and Moore faces up to seven years in prison.  It’s incredibly unlikely that Moore will receive the full seven years.  More also faces fines which may reach as high as $500,000.

Moore’s charges stem from allegations, which he has admitted, that he solicited and paid co-defendant Charlie Evens to access e-mail accounts and search for nude photos, which Moore would then post on his website, IsAnyoneUp.

Evens still faces trial in March.  There is no plea agreement with Evens that has been made public, if one exists, and Moore’s agreement does not include any indication that he has agreed to testify against Evens.

Moore’s plea deal comes less than a month after YouGotPosted proprietor Kevin Bollaert was convicted on numerous extortion and identity theft charges and IsAnybodyDown operator Craig Brittain submitted to sanctions by the Federal Trade Commission for his conduct in deceiving people into sending him nude photos and subsequently charging for their removal.  A third operator, Casey Meyering, will shortly be tried on extortion charges for deploying a scheme identical to Brittain’s.  In one month, approximately half of the operators of dedicated revenge porn sites have been sanctioned, convicted, or are likely to be convicted.  Stunning.

Hunter Moore plea deal

Ares Rights Purports to Act for Ecuador’s President to Censor Documentary About… Censorship

February 14, 2015 Uncategorized No comments

Last month, Ares Rights found itself the subject of renewed media attention asking whether the government of Ecuador employs the peculiar Spanish firm to deploy bogus copyright notices in an effort to censor or harass political dissidents.

(For background, you can read my original summary how Ares Rights has purported — for years – to act forf governments and officials of Ecuador and Argentina, to abuse American copyright law to remove criticism — including this very website.)

I’d begun to suspect that Ares Rights had decided to lay low for awhile, or perhaps that its ties to the government had been severed altogether — if they existed at all, anyway, as the rare statements by their purported ‘clients’ have been to deny that a contractual relationship exists.  Comedic satirist John Oliver’s absolutely brutal takedown of Correa’s live-on-television doxing of his Twitter and Facebook critics only added fuel to criticism of Correa’s intolerance of dissent.  (Curiously, HBO’s re-run of the episode was broadcast throughout South America – except Ecuador.)

But now, Ares Rights is back.  In DMCA notices sent to YouTube, Ares Rights once again purports to act on behalf of Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa (who, to my knowledge, has never denied hiring Ares Rights, even when addressing the issue), Ecuador’s state-funded television outlet ECTV (which has denied having a contractual relationship with Ares Rights), and Correa’s official television broadcasts.  One of the DMCA notices sent to YouTube by Ares Rights is below.

The YouTube videos targeted by Ares Rights consist of a documentary criticizing journalistic freedom under Correa’s government.  A few short clips of Correa’s televised addresses on his official program on ECTV are interwoven among interviews with various free speech advocates.  In any nation with a remotely sane copyright law or a modicum of respect for the freedom of political speech, these would be fair uses exempt from claims of copyright.  When the words of a politician can be subject to copyright, then the politician need only seek the removal of his own words when they’re used to criticize him.

Here’s a shorter version — which Ares Rights also sought to remove:

In addition to the few clips of Correa’s speeches — which, with his handheld microphone, look more like televised sermons — the only other clip which originates from Correa’s government or television network is an advertisement, apparently produced by the communications arm of Ecuador’s government, which should be in any respectable documentary about freedom of speech in Ecuador, because it is alarming and has no place in a coherent democracy.  In the ad, a woman and her son are appalled when they gather around the breakfast table and read a newspaper headline declaring, “Drunk woman crashes with her young lover.”  The son says, “but mom, that’s a photo of you driving me to school.”  Then the words literally start attacking the woman, and the son tells the viewer that a new communications law is needed to protect freedom of speech, as opposed to freedom of ‘distortion':

The above clip is identified in Ares Rights’ takedown notice as infringing on its putative clients’ rights.  Critics of Ecuador can’t even reprint its official government propaganda in the context of criticizing it, because copyright.  The government’s words, whether from the mouth of Correa or in the form of a slick public ‘service’ announcement, must come from “authorized official channels”, per Ares Rights’ claim.

While the ad suggests that such a law would protect the common person, Ecuador’s 2013 Organic Law on Communication has instead been utilized to protect — surprise! — political leaders.  Correa’s government is, among other abuses, accusing independent media outlets of censoring him by not covering him enough.  This has the effect of misappropriating private media for government propaganda: “you must print my words, but you can’t print them to criticize me.  I own the copyright.”

The true role of Ares Rights remains unclear.  Have they been hired by Correa or his government?  Or are they acting independently?  Until these questions are answered — and perhaps after they’re eventually answered — the content targeted by Ares Rights should be viewed and shared.  Someone, whether officially sanctioned or not, doesn’t want them to be seen.  Those efforts should — and must — backfire.

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Kevin Bollaert Convicted of Extortion in YouGotPosted/ChangeMyReputation Case

February 2, 2015 Asshats, Involuntary Porn, YouGotPosted 2 comments

Kevin Christopher Bollaert has been convicted of 27 counts of felony extortion and identity theft in connection with his operation of revenge porn site YouGotPosted.com and its extortionate partner, ChangeMyReputation.com.  Bollaert was acquitted of conspiracy and one charge of identity theft. More than thirty women testified to payments demanded by Bollaert’s operation.

This is the first conviction — anywhere — of a revenge porn site owner.  Casey Meyering, another site owner with a scheme identical to that of Craig Brittain, who reached a settlement with the FTC last week, also faces trial in California on extortion charges.  Hunter Moore, the progenitor of so-called “revenge porn” sites, faces trial in March for alleged violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.  None, including Bollaert, have been charged under California’s “revenge porn” statute, which was both (1) passed after Bollaert’s arrest; and (2) is inapplicable to the people running revenge porn sites by operation of CDA § 230.

I first identified the extortionate and fraudulent practice of Bollaert and his partner, Eric Chanson, almost a year before Bollaert’s indictment. 1  The state’s evidence — which I will detail in an update to this post later this evening — demonstrated that Bollaert operated both the revenge porn site and ChangeMyReputation, which purported to be an independent company that could remove the photos from YouGotPosted.com.  Chanson, at some point — apparently after my initial post — asked Bollaert to disassociate Chanson’s name from the sites, but Chanson’s accounts were used to establish the means of soliciting payments through ChangeMyReputation.  My research demonstrated that, among other things, emails sent from both YouGotPosted and ChangeMyReputation originated from the same San Diego IP address, and that the “ChangeMyReputation” operator could not identify a single other site from which photos could be removed.  At the time, I called this practice “extortionate.”

Please forgive this moment of schadenfreude: 2

babe_ruth

After a friend — who shall remain nameless, but to whom much gratitude is owed — assisted in terminating the site’s PayPal account, Bollaert began demanding that victims pay him in Amazon gift cards.  Bollaert shut down the sites almost immediately after law enforcement contacted him.

I won’t pretend to have an educated guess as to the amount of time Bollaert faces, but it’s safe to say that it’s substantial.  While I could not attend the trial, I do hope to attend the sentencing.

Bollaert did raise what appears to be a defense based, in part, on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  I would be surprised if this verdict were not appealed, as it’s circumspect as to whether the extortion and, in particular, identity theft charges impermissibly treat Bollaert as a publisher, which would prevent prosecution at the hands of state authorities.

 

Notes:

  1. I don’t know whether law enforcement relied on my research in targeting Bolleart.  I can only hope. ↩
  2. Perhaps inappropriately so.  My contribution amounted to writing a blog post.  The real credit goes to the law enforcement officers and prosecutors who were willing to listen and try a difficult case, the attorneys who sued these guys pro bono, and, most importantly, the dozens of victims who were willing to speak up. ↩

Craig Brittain Settles With FTC Over Revenge Porn Site “IsAnybodyDown”, “David Blade” Story Changes (Again)

January 29, 2015 IsAnybodyDown 8 comments

It’s been almost two years since we last heard from Craig Brittain, one-time proprietor of revenge porn site “Is Anybody Down?”, but he has reappeared to apologize for the harm that his site laid upon its hundreds of victims, promising to make amends by returning the payments he extorted through his fake “lawyer,” “David Blade III.”

Just kidding.  Craig entered into a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over his site and, meanwhile, joined the feral tornado known as Gamergate. He’s busy setting the record straight about the conspiracy theories that birthed “David Blade.”  But it’s difficult to set the record straight when you can’t keep your story straight.

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Censorious Asshats Roca Labs: It’s Defamation to Call Us Censorious Asshats

January 21, 2015 Uncategorized One comment

The revolving door of attorneys momentarily employed by censorious asshats Roca Labs has now produced this gem: the company wants to amend its complaint in its suit against PissedConsumer.com to allege that it’s defamatory to call them “censorious asshats” (which they are.)

In a complaint so long — clocking in at three hundred and fifty-four paragraphs — and saturated with images that it had to be sent to the court in four separate files, Roca “Censorious Asshats™” Labs is very angry.  I’ve stitched the complaint together below, if your computer is capable of handling seventy-four pages of censorious asshattery.

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Australian Court Awards $48,000 in Involuntary Porn Case

January 20, 2015 Involuntary Porn No comments

From the southern hemisphere comes a judgment against an Australian for $48,404 and injunctive relief in an involuntary (or “revenge”) porn case, Wilson v. Ferguson.

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Athens, GA Police Escort People From Gym Over Shirts Sympathetic to Alleged Murderers

January 20, 2015 Free speech No comments

From the Athens Banner-Herald comes a report of two people escorted by Athens, Georgia police officers from a high school basketball game because they wore t-shirts apparently sympathetic to alleged murderers.  The article does not suggest that either of the two expelled persons disrupted the event or otherwise acted unruly.  They simply wore t-shirts, one depicting a photograph of Andre Ruff smoking marijuana and the other depicting mug shots of Ruff and Cormaine Goss.  Both shirts included the slogan “free my family,” and one of the people wearing the shirts is apparently related to Goss.  Ruff and Goss were recently arrested on charges of murdering a student at the University of Georgia.

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Roca Labs’ Litigation Universe Grows, Sued Over Bogus Copyright and Defamation Threats

January 15, 2015 Uncategorized No comments

Sometimes the best response to a censorious threat of litigation — especially when the saber-rattler has a lengthy history of filing dumb lawsuits — is to show up first and put them on the defensive.

Roca Labs’ litigation history is fairly extensive for the short period of time in which they’ve made the courts their sandbox, so I won’t repeat it here, but Techdirt’s coverage has been fairly comprehensive and is well worth perusal.  In short, Roca Labs is a Florida company which produces a nutritional supplement purporting to allow amazing weight loss, but it’s so amazing that in order to buy it, you have to promise not to criticize the company.  Roca has issued threats of defamation lawsuits against many critics and has followed through on some of them, including a series of lawsuits targeting consumer gripe site PissedConsumer.com and reviewers who criticized Roca on that site.  These lawsuits are frivolous abuses of the legal system designed to intimidate critics into silence.

Around the time that Roca Labs was losing its quest for a court order mandating that PissedConsumer stop letting people criticize the company, Roca issued a demand under the DMCA, asserting that PissedConsumer was using a thumbnail version of Roca’s logo and a photograph of Roca’s product.  Plus, the complaint continued, PissedConsumer was infringing on Roca’s trademark by using its name “in the URL and pages.”

Had Google accepted Roca’s complaint, it likely would have resulted in Google removing the PissedConsumer criticism of Roca Labs from Google’s search results.  Of course, this is exactly what Roca is trying to do, as it has gone as far as to file a lawsuit with that explicit goal.  And, of course, it didn’t work.

Now PissedConsumer is going on the offensive, filing a lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida under the DMCA.  PissedConsumer alleges that Roca Labs knew or should have known that its DMCA takedown notice was frivolous, as the use of the logo was clearly a fair use, rendering Roca Labs liable for damages caused under 512(f).  While there are some potential pitfalls for this claim — I won’t help Roca by pointing them out here — there is some support for the notion that a takedown notice issued against clear fair uses runs afoul of 512(f).  Plus, PissedConsumer has added a cause of action for Roca Labs’ attempted use of the DMCA to assert a trademark right, which was clearly an inappropriate use of the DMCA takedown mechanism.

PissedConsumer is also seeking declaratory relief that its use of Roca’s name did not infringe on its trademark, as well as declaratory relief that various statements — for example, that “Roca Labs […] believes that it can silence you through fear and intimidation directed at Pissed Consumer” — are not defamatory.  Because they aren’t.  PissedConsumer also asserts that Roca’s conduct has amounted to an abuse of process.  Which it is.

PissedConsumer v. Roca Labs

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