The story as it stands so far...
One of the things I've done in the past couple of years is to scrape the search engines for content. Once I get that content, I sometimes tweak it, but invariably it ends up on my network of sites to feed the search engines more of what they're looking for. (Ok, maybe that's a stretch but they DO crawl and index my sites :))
Occasionally, this type of rogue behavior upsets people. It usually amounts to a cease and desist e-mail. Some of them are boring, some of them are amusing and some I find hysterical. Most have very poor grammar. Actually, I don't think I've seen one that sounded like it was written by a real lawyer.
I digress...
A couple of days ago I received a letter from a Kimberly Williams of Boston School Of Electrolysis (as Rand noted in his cleanup post). Without posting the e-mail for all to see, what I found most amusing about it was that she accused me of identity theft. As the FTC says:
Identity theft is a serious crime. How does it happen?
Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information without your permission to commit fraud or other crimes.
Kimberly has also blessed me with the stunning new moniker - Spamming Scum-Bag Thief.
Once again, I found it rather amusing. Now, Kimberly used whois to track me down. When she first looked at the domain in question, it had privacy protection so she looked at the name server that it was pointed to and assumed that the website and the nameserver were owned by the same person.
In this particular case, that assumption is wrong and the website is owned by a customer of mine. Nevertheless, as a favor to my host, I decided to remove the content from that particular page.
However, I figured a few people would enjoy the e-mail and I posted it shortly thereafter on SEOmoz.
It appears that Kimberly also did some searching and came across my very outdated blog as well and even found my bio (which she later accused me of falsifying).
The post stirred up a bit of controversy and the feelings went across the spectrum, from worst post evah to great post, funny shit.
Fast forward a couple of days, a few more phone calls from Kimberly asking if I was on the sex offenders registry, etc. and finally she posted on SEOmoz...more than a dozen times (and contacted Rand & other member of SEOmoz's staff).
Now, I have no hard feelings toward Randfish at all taking the advise of his legal team. Personally I disagree with him in that I don't think it's illegal to post an e-mail someone has sent you, but that's my opinion and I'm not a lawyer :)
Having said that, there are a few things that one can glean from all of this.
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First and foremost of course, is how your business looks to those around you. Will the public image that you have generate more or less customers? In my particular case, the controversy only helps me as I'm a black hat and that's the kind of things people would expect from a black hat. For Ms. Williams, however, it might tarnish her reputation. For instance, look at this. While I cannot establish the veracity of this website, I can say that the behavior posted there is very similar to what I've seen when listing to the voicemails that Ms. Williams left as well as reading her e-mails.
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Whois privacy is a double edged sword. While you may think that you're hiding your info, quite often the person who is trying to track you down will go to your host. If you don't have a good relationship with your host, you could easily have your websites shut down.
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Do you have a legal team to back you? Yes, some people are upset that Rand deleted the original post (which is already indexed in Google), but he's got to look out for his business and make sure that it isn't hurt by his blog. There have been a few times where I've had to depend on a lawyer but, usually, ignoring these people works rather well :)
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What type of publicity do you want? Both SEOmoz and the Boston School of Electrolysis have seen a surge of people recently over the posts but how will it affect either in the long run? I believe that the larger the company the more they'll work to protect their public image. The smaller ones usually go with the "all publicity is good publicity" motto.
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Pagejackers are a waste of your time people. If you want better rankings, simply optimize your site and outrank the suckers. It's not that hard. My sites don't have that many links pointing to them and in most cases I'm targeting the very long tail so it should be incredibly easy to push them off the map.
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And finally, of course, is the question of whether you have better things to do with your time. Personally, I write for SEOmoz because I enjoy it. I get to be in the public eye just a little bit and have some stimulating conversations with a few people - some of whom have become good friends. So I don't consider it a waste of my time. I'd suspect, however, that Ms. Williams could find better things to do with her time than trying so hard to protect a name that isn't even trademarked :)
As a sidenote, when you call someone up on the phone and leave a message, telling them you're filing charges for them being a stalker in another state isn't lkikely to get you a return call.
And that, as they say, is that - and it's also related to SEO now. That should make the naysayers happy :)
G-Man
Being still green to SEO/SEM, those TOS on her site are amazing! It scares me. I truely hope this is not what the world is coming to. But I do love the hand written request ( I forgot how to write ... I type) with a valid photo ID.
I originally posted this on SEOEgghead's blog:
This whole incident has been grossly blown way out of proportion. SEOmoz is being painted as the schoolyard bully who steals everyone's lunch money, which is absolutely absurd.
Yes, G-Man is a spammer, and yes, he writes for our blog. We pride ourselves on having diverse points of views (that of a spammer, of crotchety Michael Martinez, of Rand, etc).
Yes, G-Man's post was irrelevant and poked fun at some woman who got caught up in the mix. However, I stand by my comment and by Rand's comment. She makes it difficult to sympathize with her when her site has an absurd terms of usage policy that she expected SEOmoz to comply with, incessantly harrasses everyone at SEOmoz (via email and phone calls) and harrasses G-Man, going so far as to accusing him of being a sex offender. Plus, it reflects poorly on her as a business professional and as Dean of the school if her grammar and communication skills are as bad as they are.
I conclude by urging us to move past this already. We have other blog posts that offer up relevant, interesting content, and I for one wouldn't mind returning our blog to the state it was in prior to this whole mess.
Wow! I hadn't read the TOS on her site. Never seen a TOS quite like it :) I certainly didn't intend, when I wrote this article, for it to get as much coverage as it has!
We now return to your regularly scheduled website...
Great point, Rebecca, and well put. It seems like people are focusing way too much on this. As such, I've learned the following:
SEO clearly doesn't take a lot time. That's why everyone can discuss issues irrelevant to industry for hours on end. As such, I expect you all to finish your work days by 2pm. Then come over and clean my house.
Rebecca - when can I expect you?
That Terms of service on her site is just hillarious. Permission to link to her site? Let's see how she likes a front-page digg. We're up for some hilarious links people :)
I'm going to start a new business model where I remove all the hair from my body and then send threatening letters to everyone who links to me on the internet.
I will be the hairless link gatekeeper.
I know this post is very old. But I just had to comment on one thing that really has nothing to do with the topic of page jacking or blackhat or crazy ladies.
I just got back from the Seattle SEOmoz Seminar earlier this month. I learned a lot at the seminar. Specifically, I learned how to chase 404’s like a wild dog and offer alternate options.
So, I would just like to point out that you have a broken link in this article. It’s where you point out “Identity Theft” which goes to www.consumer.gov/idtheft. This is a page that doesn’t exist anymore.
However, you don’t have to fret! I just happen to have a fantastic replacement for you! It’s called “The New Era of Identity Theft Protection” and it’s an updated version of the broken link.
Please feel free to replace the link and show me that I am, indeed, putting the SEOmoz seminar to good use!
Thank you,
Nicole
I dont wanna touch this debate with a ten foot pole.... all i will say is that content can come from many places and there is a very thin line between the genuine and the dodgy.... we all draw that line in different ways...
Great comments folks. I can certainly see both sides of the story and as noted previously, where I think I'm wrong I've apologized.
On the issue of theft, I would consider this:
https://news.makewebmoney.ru/category/other/
to be theft more than I would something that's simply scraping Google and putting snippets on a page.
Obviously others disagree tho :)
All the controversy and drama over this silly little matter has made my daily SEO reads much more entertaining. Everyone seems to be talking about this now. The original blog post would have been a linkbait golden nugget.
- FreeAgent
"In my particular case, the controversy only helps me as I'm a black hat and that's the kind of things people would expect from a black hat."
I can say that it changed my perception of you, G-man. And of SEOmoz, to be honest. Rand, you pulled the post because of concerns that G-man might have illegally quoted private email, right? Not because G-man admitted that his scraping (which is against terms of service such as https://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html) pulled an innocent website into his scraper and stressed someone else as a result.
I ask because the private email issue is the only reason you mentioned for pulling the post--not the scraping, black hat tricks, drawing an analogy between the scraping victim and a "retarded person," or any of the other reasons you might have wanted to yank that post.
Admittedly, the comparison between Kimberly and a retarded person was out of line. I publicly apologize on that one. I happened to post that right after I'd heard a voicemail where she was saying I was on the sex offenders registry. Does that excuse what I posted? Nah, probably not.
As far as what I do, I make no bones about it. I have and will scrape the search engines when I find that it's useful to do so. An interesting topic would be if the TOS are actually legally enforceable at all. :)
However, in the past several months, most of the search engines have gotten quite good (imo) of filtering out much of the scraped content. So it's likely that I'll be moving on from that. Besides, if you do it in quantity it's DOG SLOW!
I still don't think it's illegal to quote a private e-mail but perhaps I'm wrong on that. Dunno :)
I changed my opinion of you Rand. I still regard you as an expert, but can't you just admit when you're wrong? It took a lot out of me to criticize another SEO as harshly as I did on my blog. I thought about it hard. And when I did, I was objective. I didn't do it for any other reason than I felt bad for her. And all you can say is that your lawyers worried you? Jaimie Sirovich SEO Egghead dot Com
You felt bad for Kimberly? Did you read her stuff on HairFacts? She's completely off her rocker!!!
I don't, for one second, condone black hat SEO - In fact, I frown upon it strongly and don't support what Geoffrey did at all; but to blame Rand or SEOmoz in any way for taking down the post is ludicrous.
Have you ever been threatened by a legalistic freak that would go to any length to drag you into court? Would you risk your business, livelihood, or financial way of life, just to leave a blog posted so others can see it? Are you kidding me?
Come on people; blog entries are one thing, and I’m a supporter of freedom of speech; but all of you who look down on Rand for pulling the blog need to think before you type. Or maybe you’re just not experienced in the ways of business and law – and maybe logic!
Till next time…
Do not confuse the tip of the iceberg (that which is published) for the entirety of the iceberg.
Matt (and others who are concerned with this content) - I 'm going to ask that you try to reserve judgement, recognize that, as Gillian noted, this issue has more to it than just what's been published and forgive us a little for failing to take steps early on.
Andy Beal recommended to me that we institute an SEOmoz approval system before posting articles from guest bloggers and we'll be trying to set that up ASAP.
In any case - I certainly never wanted or intended for this to become a big issue. Rather my goal for today is to get back on topic with the blog and do what I can in the future to make sure events like this are tempered.
But it's important to note that Rand was concerned about the woman's well-being all along. And while his final justification for removing the post were legal concerns, that doesn't mean that the other issues didn't concern him. In fact, they were the direct reason for developing rules of conduct for the blog.
Someone who stays up until the early hours of the morning, emailing back and forth with someone who he's never met, then developes codes of conduct for his blog so that this doesn't happen again is more responsible, more accountable, and more considerate that most would be in this situation.
Anyone that has that much time on their hands, just has too much time. Anyway, this is one of the more interesting situations I have read about in a while.
I don't think there could be a true'r statement.
I don't care whether scraping is against G's terms of service or not, or whether the terms are legally enforcable, I can't approve of parasitic ploys to syphon profit from the work of others.
As for the lagal status of e-mails, as a publisher I know that in the U.S. the rights to letters have belonged to the sender while in some other countries, such as France, they belong to the recipient. Whether this applies to e-mails, or even whether the legal situation has changed since I last looked into it I don't know.
Hair-raising.
My 'Cliff Notes' Version of all that's been happening:
1. Geoffrey may have been a little harsh and recognizes it. Good of him to address that with a public apology.
2. People like to attack the spammer. I guess it's coming back into fashion. Time for some to wash the cloak that goes with the hat I suppose.
3. Rand made a business decision to pull the post. Bitch all you want about free speech but I won't second guess his decision. At some point we have to make choices that keep food on the table. He has a responsibility to his business and his employees to make these decisions.
4. Matt plays the Google TOS card and judges Rand for the scraping and black hat tricks. Matt, seeing you chum it up at SES with some of the spammers makes this one hard to swallow. Pick a side and stick to it.
5. Seoegghead steps forward to protect all that have been scraped. Perhaps you might start with the engines and ask why they pay the spammers for the clicks on their sites. Follow the money my friend and don't try to protect everyone thats been scraped. The line is quite long so you'll certainly be busy.
6. I still am not clear about the legality of posting the details of someone's correspondence online. In the past I've posted some pretty nasty stuff from fans of a long defunct blog. When someone would write in with racist comments I was all too pleased to post their email along with their first name and the area of the city in which they lived. When someone's wrong I'll call them on it but if push came to shove I'd probably make the same choice as Rand and pull the post. Some fights are just not worth the outcome.
Rand, We've met a couple times over the past few years at various SES events. You're one of the few people in this industry that shows a genuine passion for the work and the science behind it. On top of it you're personable and engaging. If I had to choose an industry spokesman, you would be my choice. You're taking some heat for what happened on the SEOMoz blog and in a way that's understandable. Geoffrey, Michael, and even Rebecca are taking some fire right now. While that may seem to be of some concern, I'd say it's a good thing. We've seen a good exchange of opinions and information in recent months and I think it's due to some of the more controversial posts. Some of us prefer a good debate instead of the back rubbing that takes place on many other SEO sites.
Hey, what am I under fire for?
For failing to answer the phone when your face called.
"...when your face called."
Huh?
*sigh* It's one of Kitty's super-mature retorts.
I always liked to think of it as our retort, Rebecca.
I guess not. This conflict is tearing everyone apart.
*sniff*
Rebecca, I meant nothing more than SEOEgghead's comment on his blog.
All those emails footers that say something like "This email is only intended for you and if you're not the recipient and are still reading this, out lawyers will poke your eyes out, etc." finally makes sense to me.
On a related note, I'm gonna go check my sites for "ILLEGAL LINKS" now.
I'm pretty certain that those footers are not enforceable either. If YOU send your e-mail to the wrong person, they have to read the entire e-mail before they get to that disclaimer. You can't un-ring the bell.
Wow Geoff, she really is psychotic!
I spent (way too much) time reading through the HairFacts article, and now I finally understand. ;)
I’m glad you posted this explanation for those of us that didn’t get to see the original.
Even though this woman is apparently of a questionable mental state, I still agree with Rand following the advice of his legal team. After all, that’s the stuff they’re paid for – and Rand has to protect his business and employees first.
Sorry "free speech" people – that’s just the real (business) world!
Till next time…