Ask Slashdot: Undoing an Internet Smear Campaign? 338
An anonymous reader writes "My fiancee is a professional writer. She has a great industry reputation and everyone that knows her loves her. But her ex-husband has maintained a number of websites in her name (literally, the URL is her name) that are filled with insane ravings and defamatory content. Have you ever had to deal with an internet smear campaign? The results float to the top of every Google or Bing search of her name. He currently lives abroad and cannot be served with legal papers. His websites are hosted overseas as well, and do not respond to conventional letters or petitions. Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous, either, and it's still difficult to prove any real 'damages' are done by it. Still, we'd like to see them go away. I'm turning to the best community of geeks in the world: how do I deal with this given the limited options at my disposal?"
three letters... (Score:2, Insightful)
SEO
Fight speech with more speech? (Score:3, Insightful)
Put up your own website... fill it with good content... get links?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Trademark violation (Score:3, Insightful)
... is the legal term you're looking for.
A trademark doesn't have to be registered. If she's been writing under her own name for years, then her name is a valuable piece of intellectual property and it's entitled to exactly the same protections as the name of 'Mickey Mouse'.
Of course, that means you need to act quickly before the trademark is considered to be officially diluted or worthless.
IANAL, TINLA etc.
IANAL (Score:5, Insightful)
For God's sake begin by hiring someone who actually knows about this stuff instead of relying on what you learned from daytime TV.
Re:three letters... (Score:5, Insightful)
mmmm... I wouldn't bother. Seems like you'd be feeding the troll. Why spend time and effort on that?
Honestly, the only thing I could say is just endure and tell people the truth of the situation if they ask. If this guy maintains this for any huge length of time, he just looks sad.
Don't bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what matters. Maybe she can trademark her name and seize the domain as being confusingly similar, but it's still throwing time and attention at somebody who clearly craves it, for dubious gain.
Re:Change your name (Score:4, Insightful)
Or get her to take his name when they marry.
Re:Fight speech with more speech? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, post links to Slashdot. What'll happen is the /. effect will take the site down.
Re:three letters... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:four letters... (Score:5, Insightful)
claim trademark to her own name
Re:WHOIS (Score:4, Insightful)
The submitter sounds like they are describing textbook cybersquatting.
So alternatively, they can try Domain Name Dispute Resolution
https://www.icann.org/en/help/dndr/udrp [icann.org]
Disputes alleged to arise from abusive registrations of domain names (for example, cybersquatting) may be addressed by expedited administrative proceedings that the holder of trademark rights initiates by filing a complaint with an approved dispute-resolution service provider.
You can register [person]sucks.com and shit on them all day long, but you can't expect to register [person].com and keep it.
Re:Possibility (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, this sounds like "I don't like what he's saying about me, and I can't do anything about it legally". The answer is man-up (or woman-up) and ignore it, or as others have said, or create a website to refute his claims, etc.
One step away from a personal army request...
Re:four letters... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hasn't stopped the RIAA from claiming copyright on songs they don't own or represent, to include public domain works.
Re:three letters... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'd argue he should wait (Score:5, Insightful)