Yikes, ugly subject! Before I clarify it a bit, I must warn you this is long.
I have a few immature enemies who like to attack me on websites every once in a while with some profile or something of the sort. Now, while it is usually harmless or easy to remedy with a quick email to the site, the last one I've dealt with has been exactly the opposite.
Since I discovered it in February (which I approximate to be about 4 or 5 months after the profile's origination), I have been attempting to get a slanderous profile taken down from a gay site. I am straight and happily engaged and do not appreciate this kind of attack. The profile has a picture of me, my first name, my website's URL, my hometown's name, and a bunch of lies attacking me.
I discovered the site due to a bunch of emails I had begun to recieve. It turns out my website's address was on the profile, and my email was on my site. After many replies to these emails to find out where they got my email, someone finally explained where the profile was. I go to the site, find the support email, and tell them about it. No response. I try again and recieve a canned, one-line response saying they are investigating. I wait a month and get nothing more, and have never since. I contact APIC Worldwide (The Association For The Protection Of Internet Copyright) for advice. They give me the contact information of the offending site's host (listed as BellEast). I email them to no avail. I call the phone number and it belongs to another provider called Zanuc. I then email them to no avail. I snail mail the BellEast address APIC gave me, wait another month and still get no reply or action. I email APIC again, and they simply tell me to "sue them" (no clarification if they mean site or host). This is not the simple answer for someone in my financial state (college student on a very limited budget).
I started to lose hope, and then I tried the site's IP in Sam Spade and it resolved it to another host, whose name slips my mind at this point. I email them and get a prompt reply that they are not the host for that site, and that the host is BellEast. They then give me contact information for BellEast which is completely different from the information APIC gave me. I try to contact BellEast via the new information... once again to no reply. That was near the end of June.
I'm running out of ideas and hope. I can't let this profile remain up. It is an obvious and blatant attack and I don't understand why the site lets it remain. I thought I'd ask my friends here at AP for some advice and if I have a valid gripe, if not only for the attack, but also for use of my material without my permission. The picture is a cut down version of one I originally took with and stored on my digital camera. Doesn't that give me the copyright as the original creator? I mentioned all of this to them before and have seemingly been ignored.
Also, if anyone has current information on BellEast, or ties to them that could help me get in contact with them and actually make some progress, I would appreciate it if you could help me out. Thanks for any help or advice anyone can provide.
-Cray, Senior in CS, Southern IL University Carbondale

[This message was edited by Good Ol' Boy 14 on 07-29-03 at 09:10 PM.]

[This message was edited by Good Ol' Boy 14 on 07-29-03 at 09:11 PM.]

Well, I just tried their supposed link, and it's no good. http://www.belleast.com/ comes back dead. So does the support link at http://affordable-hosting-web-site-services.com/compares.htm , which I found in a Google search.

Curiouser and curiouser...doesn't sound like they're in still in business. I tried clicking on the purchase link for their most expensive service, almost $3,000.00, and it came up dead too. The Zanuc site did come up; and all their links appear to be working.

I don't suppose you have any idea who the culprits are, do you? If you did, you could report them to the university. A real nasty piece of business, to be sure.

Do you feel like telling any of us the site you're having the problem with? Maybe we can attempt to help...I'd be willing. Let us know; my email's in my profile (just remove the underscores and no spam reference and it'll work) if you'd rather not post more, here.

Oh, by the way...I have outstanding b**** credentials. I'm the credit manager (evil collector) for a construction equipment rental company and have scared more than a few individuals into "doing the right thing." I also may have access to legal counsel (he works with my sister; they are both employed by the Federal Government. He has this thing about helping "the little guy").

Let me know.

[This message was edited by sonnet26 on 07-29-03 at 10:23 PM.]

Good luck with this. If you think I can be of any assistance, please email me with the site information also, please. One of my clients is a lawyer and if you like, I will ask him for some "Pro Bono" assistance.

Illinois Pro Bono Site

I just sent another message to the site's support email to give them a last chance to get it down before it gets messy.
As for the culprit, I have a pretty good idea of who it is. There is probably a max of 3 people who would do this, but considering the spelling, the style in which it was written, as well as what he says for responders to do regarding my guestbook (which he used to frequently "bomb" with junk entries until I blocked his IP), I have complete certainty who it is. I went to grade school, high school, and a year of junior college with the punk and know his writing when I see it. Help from the University is out, seeing as it is an outside issue regarding someone from back home who doesn't attend there. I have no reservations about taking him down, but proving he did it without having the site cooperate is simply not possible. Their records regarding the IP used to create the profile vs his ISP's connection records is the key. I suggested this in every message I sent to the site and assumed hosts.
After having my picture on a profile slandering me for so long, working on resolving it in a public forum doesn't bother me so much and may help someone in a similar situation in the future as well. So:
The site they created the offending profile on is http://www.wheretheboysgo.com
The URL of the profile is http://www.wheretheboysgo.com/personals.asp?username=analcowboy
Their support email is simply support@wheretheboysgo.com
Maybe if they recieve enough complaints about the profile, they'll kill it...
Sonnet and Dwight, it would be great if you could get some initial thoughts on my situation from your respective sources. (How shaky is the ground I stand on, what would be the next good step to take, etc). Thanks especially to you two for your quick responses.
Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone who has or will help with this. I appreciate it.
-Cray, Senior in CS, Southern IL University Carbondale

I just sent the site an email and copied you...let's see what happens. There's a message for you at the bottom of the email.

Everyone:

I've gotten some pretty quick responses to the emails I've sent to the site. I've forwarded them all to Cray and am waiting to hear from him. We may want to wait, on starting a "letter" campaign on Cray's behalf, until we see what transpires with what I've done so far.

I can tell you as a professionally trained photographer that if your likeness is being used without your permission (aka. model release: signed by you allowing the photographer to do what he pleases with your image), and if there is no model release for the photo used, someone is potentially in deep ca-ca...

I tell you what, whomever is doing this to you is one sick individual, who is getting entertainment out of your misery, hope you find them, and make them pay for what they're doing, God knows how many other people they are doing it to.

By the way, PuppyBlues was just saying she had a similar situation going on with Yahoo singles, it was saying she was gay too, getting mail from females.

You can go and download a free lite copy of Neotrace and it will give you enough information to prove the identity. Just surf neotrace freeware on your favorite search engine...

Victory!
The profile is finally down. Once we finally got them to listen and halfway take us seriously(thanks to sonnet), all I had to do was prove that I was me. A quick scan of a photo ID, the full version of the original picture, and the obviousness that http://ninjaandy.8k.com is my website after I posted the update paragraph at the bottom talking about this whole issue was enough to convice them that I was me and to take the profile down. I couldn't have done it without my friends here at AP and the confidence it gave me knowing I had so many people ready to help. Suddenly it wasn't me as the little guy fighting against the big bad commercial site. It was an army going after taking that enemy flag down. Thank you to everyone who posted, and especially to sonnet who I'd say had more of an influence on them than I did. As if y'all haven't gotten sick of hearing it yet, Thank You!
-Cray, Senior in CS, Southern IL University Carbondale

Great news! And another special thank you to sonnet26!

Dwight

I have heralded long and loud that we regular people can change the world. It will not happen in one night or week or even year. But soon we will be a large enough force to get things done if we desire. AnswerPool.com is a good thing, and it needs to always be here for people.