tonimoroni
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
I don't have a story where someone abused me on facebook chat or some internet bully is posting modified meme of my personal pictures on the web. I am a victim of true online defamation. The reason for posting my story here is to inform everyone to think twice before you even want to pursue such cases via legal option.
In todays age where everyone is ready to sue anyone at any point of time it is most important to know that MOST of the online defamation cases are no contingent. Basically you have to put high costs upfront to pursue such matter in terms of retainer and no attorney would work on contingent basis. The reason being that laws regarding privacy disclosure online are just too vague and unless you are NSA or FBI you virtually have no way of tracing someone unless you spend excessive amount of private funds and pursue it for ages. Unless you are a business and its a matter of survival, it is virtually impossible to find the culprit if they are smart and know the loop holes in the system.
In my case, I started off with a cyber crime investigator who basically charged me $2500 and came back with nothing. Absolutely nothing. The culprit had used fake ids and posted videos and bligs under my real name and took pictures from my facebook account. Accused me of being a terrorist, con artist, woman abuser, threat to national security etc. There was not a single web hosting website where negative things about me weren't posted an tagged including videos, pictures, fake twitter accounts and google blogs. All with the intention that anyone who would google my name would get this information on first 3 pages of the search results. Obviously for a person with my background where feedback and reviews decided my future projects this was a devastating experience. On one page of a link of my linkedin profile along with 20 different malicious links. There were even videos with women using my facebook profile pics and accusing me of infidelity.
I used a pretty reputable law firm and after 5k in retainer costs consumed in 2 months all i got was a complaint issued in local court (sub peona). Hopefully on the basis of which these hundreds of website will be approached regarding taking those links down. The sad part is that websites such as rip off reports etc wont bring down these negative links even with a court order. I dont know how much cost it will take to clear the results but it is a very long process which requires lots of patience.
I suggest parallely one should hire a web marketing company which posts negative links about you so that in 2-3 months the search results are flooded with positive information rather then negative. The only down side is that with bing and google search algorithm changing and based on traffic and clicks per link the results might vary every month. So chances are unless you have a company monitoring your search results it would be somewhat expensive in the long run. Also, it might be good idea to put google alerts against your name and family name so that if somone does tag you or post something negative about you, you get notified immediately rather than coming to know through coworkers and family members as in my case.
So if I have filed a complaint with FBI cyber crime division but they did not get back to me. Filed a DMCA take down request with google so that my private pictures from facebook are removed from these malicious links but they have turned down my request. Contact EFF to start an investigation but they didn't get back to me. So far there are no options. Unfortunately, if you are in a miserable situation as I am there aren't much options other than lawyers and they cost lot of money. So far I have spent $10k in legal and invesigative costs. Even if you have a clue who the person is there is no way you can link them because unless you are NSA or law enforcement you are simply not going to get the link between an individual and the postings because most of this work could be outsourced to outside of US and there are so many ways of ip spoofing and masking that it is virtually impossible to track a person. The culprits know that. In my case, I know my own brother and his friend did this to me and they even told me that they did something similar to their business competitor and couple of fake reviews and negative info wiped their competitor out of business but because THE LAW is too weak there is no way to trace them.
Only options are attorneys and as mentioned earlier they can be expensive. My current attorney is charging $400 an hr. I am not sure how long I can have him and based on his attitude looks like he isnt interested much because most of the online defamation suits have no juice in them for the attorneys. They make money through legal costs and it is fair but the real question is it REALLY worth it pursuing a legal case against someone who posted crap about you online and is harassing you on facebook etc. Only you can answer that question?
On a side know I would like to know how much in general does it cost to issue a subpeona to a website. Any cost estimate would be great. Also, my attorny has consumed my retainer and at the moment I am not sure if I can pursue further a charge of $400/hr. What should I do? My attornys are ignoring my emails regarding contingent discussion. They keep sending me a bill end of every month? Can any one assist me with options.
Thanks
I don't have a story where someone abused me on facebook chat or some internet bully is posting modified meme of my personal pictures on the web. I am a victim of true online defamation. The reason for posting my story here is to inform everyone to think twice before you even want to pursue such cases via legal option.
In todays age where everyone is ready to sue anyone at any point of time it is most important to know that MOST of the online defamation cases are no contingent. Basically you have to put high costs upfront to pursue such matter in terms of retainer and no attorney would work on contingent basis. The reason being that laws regarding privacy disclosure online are just too vague and unless you are NSA or FBI you virtually have no way of tracing someone unless you spend excessive amount of private funds and pursue it for ages. Unless you are a business and its a matter of survival, it is virtually impossible to find the culprit if they are smart and know the loop holes in the system.
In my case, I started off with a cyber crime investigator who basically charged me $2500 and came back with nothing. Absolutely nothing. The culprit had used fake ids and posted videos and bligs under my real name and took pictures from my facebook account. Accused me of being a terrorist, con artist, woman abuser, threat to national security etc. There was not a single web hosting website where negative things about me weren't posted an tagged including videos, pictures, fake twitter accounts and google blogs. All with the intention that anyone who would google my name would get this information on first 3 pages of the search results. Obviously for a person with my background where feedback and reviews decided my future projects this was a devastating experience. On one page of a link of my linkedin profile along with 20 different malicious links. There were even videos with women using my facebook profile pics and accusing me of infidelity.
I used a pretty reputable law firm and after 5k in retainer costs consumed in 2 months all i got was a complaint issued in local court (sub peona). Hopefully on the basis of which these hundreds of website will be approached regarding taking those links down. The sad part is that websites such as rip off reports etc wont bring down these negative links even with a court order. I dont know how much cost it will take to clear the results but it is a very long process which requires lots of patience.
I suggest parallely one should hire a web marketing company which posts negative links about you so that in 2-3 months the search results are flooded with positive information rather then negative. The only down side is that with bing and google search algorithm changing and based on traffic and clicks per link the results might vary every month. So chances are unless you have a company monitoring your search results it would be somewhat expensive in the long run. Also, it might be good idea to put google alerts against your name and family name so that if somone does tag you or post something negative about you, you get notified immediately rather than coming to know through coworkers and family members as in my case.
So if I have filed a complaint with FBI cyber crime division but they did not get back to me. Filed a DMCA take down request with google so that my private pictures from facebook are removed from these malicious links but they have turned down my request. Contact EFF to start an investigation but they didn't get back to me. So far there are no options. Unfortunately, if you are in a miserable situation as I am there aren't much options other than lawyers and they cost lot of money. So far I have spent $10k in legal and invesigative costs. Even if you have a clue who the person is there is no way you can link them because unless you are NSA or law enforcement you are simply not going to get the link between an individual and the postings because most of this work could be outsourced to outside of US and there are so many ways of ip spoofing and masking that it is virtually impossible to track a person. The culprits know that. In my case, I know my own brother and his friend did this to me and they even told me that they did something similar to their business competitor and couple of fake reviews and negative info wiped their competitor out of business but because THE LAW is too weak there is no way to trace them.
Only options are attorneys and as mentioned earlier they can be expensive. My current attorney is charging $400 an hr. I am not sure how long I can have him and based on his attitude looks like he isnt interested much because most of the online defamation suits have no juice in them for the attorneys. They make money through legal costs and it is fair but the real question is it REALLY worth it pursuing a legal case against someone who posted crap about you online and is harassing you on facebook etc. Only you can answer that question?
On a side know I would like to know how much in general does it cost to issue a subpeona to a website. Any cost estimate would be great. Also, my attorny has consumed my retainer and at the moment I am not sure if I can pursue further a charge of $400/hr. What should I do? My attornys are ignoring my emails regarding contingent discussion. They keep sending me a bill end of every month? Can any one assist me with options.
Thanks