Complaint Review: Crunchline LLC - Flagner Beach Florida

  I can't believe that anyone would be dumb enough to pay a website to not publish a public record.   It's a public record!  That means any website can publish it.   Are you going to pay all of them?   Don't you think that might encourage new "public record" websites to start up?   It's pointless.   If you got arrested and your mugshot has become part of the public record, there is nothing you can legally do to stop it from being published.   You might as well just accept responsibility for your actions and move on with your life.   You will never be able to make it go away. 

The operation mugshot sites are likely protected by the First Amendment, since the information contained on the site is public records. Mugshot sites will often charge to unpublish material from their site, and they have the right to do so. While this practice upsets those affected, it is again legal since the sites can make decisions as to which mugshots to include, and which to unpublish. Unpublishing is a major issue in the  publishing world and it doesn't start or end with one site or another (Google "Unpublish" or "Unpublishing"). This is simply the cost of living in the Information Age, when public information is readily available.

Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

18 USC 1030 - Fraud and related activity in connection with computers
(2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains
(C) information from any protected computer;

18 USC 641 - Public money, property or records
Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof;

Whoever receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted

Craig Wiggen: Craig Wiggen's purloined "4 million" law enforcement database records "that were once hidden behind police CGI search scripts." Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) charges "$24.00 per record" to search FDLE's Computerized Criminal History (CCH), $96,000,000+.
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen: "Wiggen said he wrote screen-scraping software to perform searches on 37 of the counties, crawling to get arrests stretching back years, and continuously polling the sites."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen: "Siphons booking photos out of county-sheriff databases throughout the Sunshine State."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Howard Helfant on Craig Wiggen: "Florida.Arrests.org is continually updating its mugshot database on a daily basis by automatically gathering information from official law enforcement file systems throughout the state of Florida."
SOURCE Howard S. Helfant - internetreputation.com

Tyronne Jacques on Florida Sheriff's: "Tyronne Jacques, owner of RemoveSlander.com said sheriff's departments could put a stop to these businesses if they banned people from republishing the information for a profit."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.

18 USC 2319 - Criminal infringement of a copyright
17 USC 506 - Criminal Offenses: "For purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain."

Craig Wiggen: "The bulk of florida.arrests.orgs income comes from advertising, he said."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen: "From his point of view, hes getting free content, then monetizing it with Google AdSense."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen: "Florida.arrests.org makes a profit from online advertising."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Tyronne Jacques on Craig Wiggen: Every time someone clicks on your page to view your mug shots, sites like Florida Arrests earns a little more cash from Google."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Kelly Joe Ellis and Craig Wiggen: "The site RemoveArrest.com often enjoys advertising right on Wiggens site through Googles algorithm-driven AdSense program."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

abc News: Thousands of people are being criminalized by mug-shot websites that collect ad revenue at their expense!
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.


18 USC 873 - Blackmail
Whoever, under a threat of informing, or as a consideration for not informing, against any violation of any law of the United States, demands or receives any money or other valuable thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Craig Wiggen: "Wired.com asked Wiggen if his site includes his own mug shot from his 2005 card-skimming arrest. Of course I'm not going to have my mug on my site, he said."

Sahar Sarid: Sahar Sarids mugshot from his arrest is noticeably absent from his website mugshots.com.
Security Watch. "MFrom Card Skimming to Mug Scraping" American Banker April 2012.

Howard Helfant: "Although removing a mugshot from the internet can help in repairing an online reputation, many times a mugshot is posted on multiple sites online. "
SOURCE Howard S. Helfant - internetreputation.com

Tyronne Jacques: "According to Jacques, some of these sites use profiling to target those who may be most willing to pay up to remove their mug shots online."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.

Tyronne Jacques: "There's a perception that white, blonde women will pay to remove their pictures, he said, Especially with a DUI, they make it on the sites all the time."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.

Tyronne Jacques: "Laura paid $50 to Fortmyermugshots.com to have her photo removed, and $399 to two companies each for the service to have her information removed from other mug shot sites, one of which was RemoveSlander.com."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.

Craig Wiggen: "Three websites displayed her mug shot, including Florida.arrests.org."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.

Tyronne Jacques: "Jacques said repeat criminal offenders or those on probation do not appear to be as targeted."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.


18 USC 880 - Receiving the proceeds of extortion
A person who receives, possesses, conceals, or disposes of any money or other property which was obtained from the commission of any offense under this chapter that is punishable by imprisonment for more than 1 year, knowing the same to have been unlawfully obtained, shall be imprisoned not more than 3 years, fined under this title, or both.

Craig Robert Wiggen: " The real trade secret is that Wiggen wants a small piece of the action. "
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen on Tyronne Jacques: "Wiggen said he has provided RemoveSlander an URL for an automated takedown script on his site. RemoveSlander presses a button and makes a payment, and my website handles it automatically, Wiggen said."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Tyronne Jacques on Craig Wiggen: For $399, RemoveSlander promises to take that fight to florida.arrests.org, and force Wiggen to remove a mug shot."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Tyronne Jacques on Craig Wiggen: "Tyronne Jacques said the removal fee pays for his crack legal team to deal with florida.arrests.org, and to force Google to get the URL removed from Googles search index."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen: "Wiggens code performs through Googles Webmaster tools."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

Craig Wiggen: "Make money by charging those with featured mug shots to remove their information."
Susanna, Kim "Businesses Charge Hundreds To Remove Mug Shots Online." abc NEWS April 2012.

Kelly Joe Ellis: "Joe Ellis, the operator of RemoveArrest.com, said his method is proprietary, but that hes used it to get hundreds of mugs removed at $129 each."
Kain, Erik. "Is the Online Mug-Shot Industry Any Different than Blackmail?" Forbes August 2011.

Howard Helfant on Craig Wiggen: "InternetReputation.com has become proficient at Florida.Arrests.org mugshot removal. When asked how fast they are able to remove mugshots from Florida.Arrests.org, InternetReputation.com responded, We have developed a set of techniques that we use to remove mugshots within 24 to 72 hours."
SOURCE Howard S. Helfant - internetreputation.com

Tyronne Jacques: "For $399, Remove Slander will remove a mugshot that is featured on a popular but seemingly unaffiliated site Florida Mug shots. (It costs $699 to remove a mug shot from multiple sites.) The company gets the mug shot taken down by paying part of that fee to the mug shot sites owner."
Ramasastry, Anita. "Mug Shot Mania: The Legal and Policy Issues Surrounding Private Websites Postings of Arrest Photos." Justia April 2012.

Wired: "On the surface, the mug-shot sites and the reputation firms are mortal enemies. But behind the scenes, they have a symbiotic relationship that wrings cash out of the people exposed."
Kravets, David. "Mug-Shot Industry Will Dig Up Your Past, Charge You to Bury It Again." Wired August 2011.

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Public records, there's nothing illegal done here.