Reputation Management Legal Solutions

Internet Defamation, Libel, Slander, Extortion, Blackmail
Legal Court Remedy

Executive Summary – Many private individuals and businesses have been damaged significantly through slanderous, defamatory internet postings, videos, etc. designed to hurt your business coloring you and your business in an unfavorable light. Sometimes such attacks are launched against an individual to damage them personally. We are a law firm in Guatemala. We know international internet law and we know how search engines work and how the internet works. We know log files, email files, we understand IP addresses, proxies, routers, encryption, hosting companies, backbones, copyright law, etc. We know the law and how to use it in your favor.

These posts usually involve the use of the name of the business and/or the name of the website combined with the words like – Scam, Fraud, Rip-Off etc. Some search engines tend to assign a lot of importance to these words thus making these postings appear prominently in the search engines results if one was to do a search for your name or the name of your business or even your domain name. In the vast majority of the instances these postings are just malicious individuals grinding an axe or competitors trying to get ahead by knocking down their competition. We can help fast, easily, legally and cost effectively! Our solutions involve taking the offending individuals to court and this could be civil or criminal. We do this in Guatemala. We can also involve the web hosting company, the backbone of the web hosting company and other related individuals in a conspiracy lawsuit. We put them in a position where they cannot ignore us. They are going to have to spend money, lots of it to keep the offending posts up. Getting the name and address of the offending party is usually quite possible as well. We can even proceed against the individuals criminally if needed and lawful.

The Reputation Management Legal Court Remedy – The basic concept is our law firm begins litigation against the posters, the forums, blogs or even those companies hosting the evil content as well as the backbone providing the bandwidth to the web hosting company who hosts the forum. We can go after offending information on facebook, twitter, or video hosting sites and other social networks. We can even get court orders that the major search engines will honor that can remove the offending site from the search engines. We are in Guatemala operating as a Guatemala Law Firm which means you have attorney client privilege. In Guatemala we do not need to abide by all the laws of the USA since the website displays in Guatemala, thus Guatemala has jurisdiction under international law. There are other ways we can obtain jurisdiction as well. This allows you to have your court orders done cost effectively. Litigation costs here are a mere fraction of the cost in Europe, Australia, Canada or the USA. In a word we set out to clean up your online reputation as quick as possible. Then we can make the offenders and those protecting them painfully sorry they played this damaging game with you so they will not attempt to regroup and repeat it.

Reputation Management and Forums – This is where many of the problems come from. The forum owner says he is not responsible for what independent posters post routinely to get rid of complaints. Posters open multiple forum accounts. They use anonymous email addresses to verify these accounts. One person using proxy servers and multiple forum accounts can damage the reputation of a business all by themselves. They say you robbed them, cheated them, ripped them off, or whatever they want to say. The forum can care less. There are places on the internet where one goes to hire internet workers from countries like India and Vietnam. I see postings to hire such people to damage the reputation of another through forum postings. This is a common and nasty trick.

To some extent the forum can hide behind the law in the USA where the protective law is written. The USA does not write laws for the whole world. This law may not apply in many instances. Please understand this. If the domain registration for the forum is not in the USA then there are other jurisdictions involved with differing laws. If the web site displays in other countries like Guatemala then there are different laws that can also apply. If the poster used an email address not in the USA, then other laws apply. If the poster used a non USA IP address then the laws of other jurisdictions can apply. If the forum is hosted outside of the USA then other laws apply. Basically the forum owners have a poor and overly simplified understanding of the law. The forum owner or web hosting company will stone wall you until you start filing in a court then they sing a different tune because they now know you are serious and you will spend money. This means they will have to spend money and they might lose and wind up owing you a lot in damages. It could possibly get into the criminal arena under certain circumstances. Yes it can, Interpol and all. There is no law to hide behind when it comes to things like extortion, blackmail, fraud, defamation, slander, threats against life or property, or copyright violation. These forums, hosting companies and backbones do not know international law. They do not know the laws in other countries although they can be exposed to actions under such laws. The search engines and backbones do understand such things. The forum lawyers do not know international law. They will need to hire lawyers in the country of the litigation as well as their own country plus an additional international law firm in their country. Expensive. They could get themselves involved in a conspiracy to commit slander, defamation, extortion and restraint of trade. They could wind up facing a six digit legal bill or find themselves with a court decision against them for a large amount of money depending on how you were damaged in addition to a restraining order preventing them continuing with the posts or allowing any new posts of a similar derogatory nature for some years. The hosting companies and the backbones frequently are very prosperous businesses and are not going to go to war for some $100 a month forum account. If the forum hangs tough and the hosting company kicks them out before the case advances very far in the courts, we just add in the name of the new hosting company and put them into the case. That would be the case if the forum company decided to try and retain the offending posts by using another hosting company. See how long the forum lasts with all the outages they will experience and we drive them crazy if they try to relocate the forum. We play a game that they do not understand. This game is expensive for them. This game has major potential downside exposure for them. We will not hesitate to take a case into the criminal arena and pursue it internationally as a criminal case using Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, UN treaties in addition to nicely requesting cooperation from other jurisdictions.

Let's Talk Blogs – This is another popular way to post slander and defamation on the internet. The above points pertaining to the forum apply here but even more tightly. The Blog is the blog. They cannot say an independent poster posted it. The idea is to go after the blog, the hosting company and even the backbone. Usually one of them will cave in before they go out and get into litigation that is international which they might lose. They can and often will remove the offending material.

Defamation, Slander, Libel, & Cyber Extortion Using Scam and Rip Off Posting Sites – There are a few of these but we will not name names. These sites specifically exist for people to post negatively about others. They will accept practically any post. They do not verify anything since that would be a massive undertaking. Do they hang tough and never remove posts – forget that? That is an urban myth. They do not have international exemptions from the law. How do such businesses make money? Well one way is they sell click through banner ads. Another way is they wait for a damaged business or damaged private person to come and offer them money to take the posts down. These are professional defamation sites. Leeches looking to feed off of you and your enemies. They can be dragged into court and so can their hosting companies and backbones. If we really want to get into it we can subpoena their advertisers to get contact information, Paypal details and even banking information. Then we could get bank records which includes principles names, street addresses, phone numbers, sources of income etc. Court records can be checked to see who they had lawsuits with and settled with or lost to. These people can be contacted for helpful information. Information can be harvested out of court files that could prove very helpful. Other damaged parties can be contacted (easy to find on their website) and see if they wish to contribute towards the end of these sites ruining lives and businesses. If you have several people together with a similar story, these sites can be construed as public menaces who routinely violate the rights of others spreading incorrect information for gain. This could push them into a very compromised position easily. These sites are not invulnerable, in fact they are extremely vulnerable when you consider that you can harvest their other victims to help make your case seem a lot stronger and them appear to be much more of a public menace feeding off of hard working business people like yourself. These sites have some lawyers on retainer but wait until you get them into an juicy international lawsuit with possible criminal conspiracy charges and see how they like that. Give them a serious downside, and make them spend money and you will see the tough guys turn into scared pussycats. Remember they stonewall 99% of those who complain. The 1% that fight hard and aggressively they settle with.

Reputation Cyber Attacks Using Anonymous and Free Email Addresses – It is easy to get a free email address. The email provider generally has the IP address that the user used to sign up with. We can subpoena these records. Usually the provider will not resist a court approved subpoena even if from another jurisdiction. They will normally never tell the user their records were subpoenaed. They provide these email addresses for free and do not want any user who is going around causing them to be served with court papers from anywhere. Usually they will hand over the records and close the account. So now with this IP address we easily look up the internet provider that gave them the IP or internet access. Then we issue a subpoena to them to find out the name and address of the person using the IP address which is the forum poster, video poster or blogger. The ISP does not want any user who is causing them to receive subpenas and will probably close the account of the offender after providing us with the information. Now we can go after them through the local and international courts with their name and address. This they are not going to like especially since it will become public record. Internet terrorists love to hide, when they are exposed they run away. There are some places that provide free email addresses to people that strip the users real IP address out of the email header. These are called anonymous email providers. They always retain the real IP address of the user in the case of abuse. These services can be used to sign up for forum accounts. The forum operator may be reluctant to provide the IP address of the poster but the email address given is frequently provided on the forum itself or can easily be had. We then go after the email provider that strips the IP address. They know the potential for abuse their service provides and will normally be quick to cooperate with a court approved subpoena even from another jurisdiction. Then when we get the IP address, we next subpoena the internet service provider and find out who the poster is and where he or she lives. The poster will be most uncomfortable with this information in your hands for sure.

Professional Defamation Forum Posters – Let's say the offender used an internet poster to spread the slander and lies. We should be able to track them down and then offer them a small payment to sign a statement about who hired them and what they wanted posted and where. From the professional forum poster we can get payment details. Much of these payments pass through Paypal. We can subpoena Paypal to find the name and address of the person ordering the defamatory posts and then we go after them. We can also offer this person money to remove the posts he made since he has the user and password of these forum accounts and can delete posts. There is always a way. The professional negative information poster is a prostitute for sale to anyone wit money, you just need to know how to contact them.

Cyber Stalking – Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet, email or other electronic communications to stalk, and generally refers to using the Internet for threatening, intimidating or malicious behaviors. Cyber Stalking may be considered the most dangerous type of Internet harassment since there is a propensity for the stalker to reach out into real life and do physical harm to property or persons. This is often done through the use of email, Skype, and messenger services. This is another illegal activity we can seek legal remedy for both civil and criminal.

Cyberharassment. Cyberharassment differs from cyberstalking in that it is generally defined as not involving a propensity for the violator to reach out into the real world and do physical harm to the victim. Cyberharassment involves threatening or harassing email messages, instant messages, forum or blog entries, or use of websites dedicated solely to tormenting an individual. This is subject to legal remedy that can be civil and/or criminal. There can be a fine line between cyber stalking and cyber harassment and the violator could cross over the line between the two.

Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying and cyberharassment are sometimes used interchangeably but cyber bullying generally applies where the victim is a minor. It can be criminal and offer civil remedies as well.

Cyber Terrorism – This is a criminal action we can seek legal remedy for both civil and criminal.

Cyber Extortion, Cyber Blackmail, Cyber Fraud, Cyber Extortion – These are all criminal activities that we can seek civil and criminal remedy for.

Going Criminal Against Abusive Reputation Attackers – Yes these abusive forum posters and bloggers can get themselves into the criminal realm. I will cite a few instances. Let's say you are a plastic surgeon. Someone came to you for a nose job. They do not like their new nose. They post badly about you on the internet. Oh don't use this doctor. He ruined my life. You can contact the person and say what do you want. They say give me my money back or I will ruin you on the Internet. Whoops. Blackmail and extortion. You see the poster is looking for an extra-legal remedy using blackmail and extortion because they think they can get away with it. They use negative internet postings to hurt you and will remove the negative posts when you resolve their claim or issues. This is criminal. Any demands for free goods, services, credits, money for any reason, return of money or anything, credits, etc for them to remove the negative posts or not do more posts, is extortion and blackmail. Holding you responsible for something and posting negatively because they feel you are responsible is the same. This is criminal behavior. Now the case can work through the international criminal justice system which is going to be ten times more responsive with requests for information and assistance since the police agencies can be used versus the civil courts. The thought is the poster will continue to extort and blackmail others and they need to be taken down as a threat as soon as possible. It could get into an arrest warrant with interpol restraining their right to travel, extradition filings, etc. We are not going to get into a lot of details on the website regarding criminality since we do not want to help the offending posters understand their criminal predicament but it is important for you to understand that there is this distinct possibility of thrusting the offenders into the international criminal system using our law firm and jurisdiction.

Search Engine Court Ordered Negative Information Removal – If there is a court order (civil is fine), generally the big search engines will comply. This is an order to have a site removed from the search engine indexing. Sometimes the offending pages will be removed form the search engine indexes. It can vary but as a rule it will help you substantially.

Reputation Management Results Time Frames – It is hard to say what the time frames are. Three months is about right to start seeing some results. Six months for a major resolution is about right. This applies to civil and or criminal. Yes both civil and criminal can be pursued simultaneously.

What Is It Going to Cost? – Fees can vary greatly. A lot depends on the nature of the problem and the amount of offending sites, posts etc. It depends on the nature of what it is we are trying to do. Is it civil, criminal or both? What countries are involved? How many offending sites are involved? Prices will vary. If you wish us to send threatening legal letters to the offenders and the offending sites we can do so but it is not normally not going to do any good. Think of this as a waste of time and money. If you wish to call us and chat we can discuss what we think costs will run as an estimate. Consultations in person can be done or over Skype, or the phone. We do ask for a retainer of $2500 to do a consultation in person. This is because we have to study the situation to get a handle on the extent of the problem. We ask for this fee to be wired before the appointment. Retainers are paid by wire transfer as are all fees. Once we can ascertain the extent of the problem we can come up with some estimates for different types of solutions.

SEO Reputation Management – This is what many Search Engine Optimization firms do to attempt a remedy of the reputation management problem. This is a concept of filling up the search engine results with positive entries. Forum and blog posts are made that talk favorably about the person, business or website. The idea is to fill up the first two pages of the search engine results with positive data. In our experience this is much easier said than done when there are negative posts to push back into the latter pages of search engine results. 80% of searchers will not go beyond page two on search results. Often this requires using high PR authority rated sites to post the positive information on, to get it in front of the offending sites. These sites need to have some relevance to the subject matter in the posts or else the search engines see them as largely irrelevant and the positive posts will have not much weight. If the offending sites are highly trafficked forums many years old, it can be difficult to get ahead of these offending posts. The effort involved can be monumental. Frequently the costs can run into the tens of thousands of dollars initially. Then there is a monthly maintenance fee to keep the positive posts up front in the search results. I have heard of such cases working for a few weeks at a time and then falling apart after many thousands of dollars are spent. Then it is necessary for you to throw more money into it. It can be a never ending money pit.

What we suggest is using the courts and the legal system to have the offending material removed from the forums, websites, social networking sites, video posting sites etc first. We always strive to get the court orders written in such a way as to prevent reposting of the offending material. The orders can be directed against individuals, businesses, forums, blogs, search engines, hosting companies, backbones, and any such combination of them. Additionally criminal cases can be pursued at the same time that are separate. When the offensive material is gone then it is a fairly simple matter to fill the first two pages of search results with positive data. It is easy because we do not have to push strong seasoned offending sites back in the search index which is expensive, difficult, time consuming and far from permanent. The costs for this depend on the keywords and how competitive they are in the search engines. It also depends on how many different keywords you wish to work on. Again this approach is best used after the offending material is removed legally as a defense or buffer against something like this happening again with different parties down the road. This of course is an optional add on. Feel free to inquire.