FTC's Jerk ruling against ex-Napster boss upheld by court The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is claiming victory after the US Court of Appeals upheld a verdict it won over reputation site Jerk.com. The court ruled that John Fanning, the former Napster CEO and chairman, deceived customers about data collection and membership benefits of Jerk.com, a social networking/smear website …
@Grease Monkey - The difference is the source of the information; it is publicly available. Extortion is difficult to prove when someone can find the information with a little from Facebook and Google. What the FTC nailed him on was fraud and false advertising; serious enough to make him very damaged goods. He now has a permanent record of a serious enforcement action against him. In some industries, this could lead to no job offer or a firing if found out.
In some industries, this could lead to no job offer or a firing if found out.
True except in the tech/web world. How about "peeple.com"? Or the history of certain companies twisting and extorting suppliers... MS and the OEM's several decades comes to mind. Maybe he could work for Google to establish a "non-tracking" scheme...
Don't know about the US but the point about extortion is not down to whether the information was publicly available. Imagine you found out something publicly available (if not necessarily widely known) about a person and then told them you would take that information top the tabloid press unless they were to pay up.
That would be extortion. This is no different.
As others have said - no social media footprint, no problem. What is interesting to me is I thought the horror that is/was Peeple was original. Apparently Mr. Fanning had the idea first.
I truly believe that there needs to be some basic required education in schools that covers social networking and the permanence of actions taken on the internet. Or some people will find themselves paying a 'subscription' to keep their mildly embarrassing antics under cover. How long before Zuckerberg or Twitter see this as an alternative revenue stream? I can see the e-mail now "Do not forget to pay your Erasure(tm) subscription fee this month to continue hiding those posts you made under the influence five years ago."
Fanning's Folly differs from the Peeple app mostly in terms of the blackmail amount, apparently.
From El Reg's story: "...the company says that it will soon introduce a 'Truth Licence' which, for a buck a day, will let you see whatever people have written about you, regardless of whether you have disallowed it and even, it seems, if you have 'deleted' it."
But Peeple's founders are also asking for donations ...
"Hey Peeps, we would love if you could support the funding of the Peeple app’s Android version! We are giving away Stuffed Animal Parrots for your kids, pets, and co-workers. We are also giving away 125 tickets to our launch party during Stampede 2016 and 325 tickets to see the exclusive viewing of our Documentary for Netflix: People vs Peeple. You can spend as little as $5 to as much as $50. Thanks for your support!"
... how does this play, exactly? Enabling character assassination and blackmail, and they want crowdfunding for it? That is so special!
I was watching Scam City "Hong Kong" on Rad X, and the scam was a similar extortion scheme.
The "lady" was actually a transvestite who sat down at a foreigner's table, invited "herself" to some food & drink at the gentleman's expense, invited "herself" along to a shopping expedition, and generally went out of "her" way to suck all the money out of this guy.
When the guy asked what it would take for "her" to go away, "she" coolly demanded $1,000,000 Hong Kong dollars, or else "she" would go to his hotel and tell them "she" was his boy, or whatever.
The moment he pointed out the cameras that had been filming them the whole time, which was a very precious moment, the transvestite scattered.
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