Website Stolen

[carol]

I found a thread relating something similar a few years ago but I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to proceed with this.

I recently put up a 1-page website for a client. It was a landing page for a newspaper ad, which he wanted to use to direct traffic back to his main site.

Looking through his stats today I discovered that someone has copied the site and put it on another domain. I'm not sure what they are going to gain by doing this - the links on the page still link back to my client's site, and not to some other domain. But at the very least, it's duplicate copy.

My client provides drug detoxification, so I'm not sure if the drug aspect has anything to do with this.

But here's the complication - the domain name has a .ca TLD. I was able to look it up on DNSStuff, which said it belongs to privacy.ca. When I called that telephone number, I get a recording that directs me to their website. Their website says that they are the privacy protectors of their registrants, and if I want to get the information on the true owner of the domain, I have to create an account with them, pay them $10 by certified cheque and then tell them why I need the information!!

Whom can I complain to? The Internic seems to have no jurisdiction over .ca domains - or am I mistaken?

Any advice would be much appreciated!
Carol

[Dubbya]

Actually, CIRA has jurisdiction over .ca domains.

While they strive to protect the personal information of registrants, they're quite active in their pursuance of fraudsters and scam artists.

If your content is copyright protected, I'd suspect that they'll do all they can to remove it from the offending site.

Contact them at http://www.cira.ca/en/contactus.html

[carol]

Thanks Dubbya. I just spoke with someone at that agency who said there is nothing they can do. He referred me to another agency (not sure of the name, but he gave me a phone number) where we can dispute the offending site's domain registration for a fee. But he said there was nothing they could do about copywrite. He said we would have to consult a lawyer and proceed that way.

So, before I advise my client to put out any money, does anyone have any guess as to what this other website could do to hurt us (other than the duplicate content issue?)

Thanks!

[incrediblehelp]

Some related threads:

Has anyone had *real success* with Google's DMCA?

Yahoo, The DMCA, And Blackhat Techniques

[carol]

Thanks IncredibleHelp, those are great resources.

I'm still puzzled, however, as to what the purpose is of copying a 1-page site, and keeping the links intact to my client's primary site. It almost seems like overkill to get a lawyer involved in this. Can anyone give me any ideas as to why someone would do this? I understand what they might have to gain in copying an entire site - but in that case, I would have expected the primary site to be duplicated, not this little 1-page "advertisement".

Thanks,
carol

[incrediblehelp]

No idea why either. Are they showing up in the SE's for similar keywords to you or your company's name? If not then I would not worry to much about it. "scrappers" are all over the place.

[zephyrireland]

We have had 2 previous occurances of this scenario where by a design was totally copied including the majority of the content - luckily they changed the contact details to suit their company and we were able to contact them. Even at that it is only when we mentioned legal action that they decided to remove the sites.

You might also be able to try emailing the usual suspects admin@offendingdomain.ca , info@offendingdomain.ca. , sales@offendingdomain.ca , webmaster@offendingdomain.ca with the threat of action to see if you can contact in this manner.

Best of luck with your attempt.

[bj]

Is it possible the purpose was to scam you out of that ten buck fee?

If you know the person who owns the domain name that's copying your client's site, one thing you or your client can do is to blog about this. Tell the story, including the domain name, the person who owns it, and how well this outfit privacy.ca is "protecting" their client's privacy, and use some interesting link text, ie "Is this a scam?" (notice the question, which puts it firmly in the realm of speculation, instead of in the realm of litigation.) Questioning why the owner of the scraper page needs privacy might be fun too. The only thing you shouldn't do is link to the scraper page, though including a screenshot and an unlinked url would do the job. Doing this might just get you the information you need, or at least alert others to the possibility of a scam of some sort. It's amazing what information will come in off a blogpost. It may also result in the page quietly going away. Sunlight is a good disinfectant. :)

[zephyrireland]

Thats a very good point bj, we have seen this happen recently with Email Injection into forms, by where companies inject into forms and send spam messages by forms and a few days later contact the company whos form got spammed to offer services to combat such threats.

It could very well be a scam and your linking method is excellent - the last this that website deserves is linked promotion of the site.

[Seminole386]

To: incredible

I have had Google remove sites. In my case the offender had 28 sites all interlinked to each other selling real estate in New Hampshire. Each page of each site had a link to every town in NH followed by a link to each of the sites. This was repeated 3 times on each page and on most searches this outfit got 27 or 28 of the first 28 results. The same repeat by town covered condos, townhomes, houses, land etc.

As for the site with a copy of your page. If it is showing up number 1 and it links to where you want it to go, I would not worry about it. The more help the better.

[exoticpublishing]

Hi there,

This happened to me too once, but it was for a postive reason, but I only learned this after I got upset.

I run an affiliate program, & affiliates often do a redirect to the Affiliate URL from their own freshly purchased domain & have it point to the main site.

Could that be the issue?

I'm going out of town tomorrow, won't be back for a week.

I hope you get it figured out.


Michelle

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

No idea why either. Are they showing up in the SE's for similar keywords to you or your company's name? If not then I would not worry to much about it. "scrappers" are all over the place.

[blitzen]

Maybe it's a student learning about building websites and is using yours as a guide.

You can sue but to win anything other than the pleasure of the win, you need to prove monetary loss from this infringement. That's where it gets tough.

I'd keep an eye on it for changes and report it to G and others who might do something in that arena.

[carol]

Thanks for all your thoughts.

zephyrireland, i'll discuss contacting them with my client.

Michelle, we don't have any affiliates - good idea, but it doesn't apply...

bj, I really like your line of thought regarding the blog! Our page is just one page - and as I said, they have kept our links intact, so it's been a puzzle as to what they have to gain by doing this. But your suggestion that the scam may be for the 10 bucks (obviously not a lot for us but if they have some kind of widespread scam) then perhaps that's the point.

Thanks!!
carol

[carol]

I don't think it's a student. It's just VERY simple 1-page landing page for my client's newspaper ad for a drug treatment program.

The fact that the owner is cloaking him/herself is also puzzling.

[zephyrireland]

Thanks Carol.
Keep an eye on the site - if they are still linking to you. I can't understand why they copied the site if they are still linking to you.
Double check the HTML to ensure that the links are still actually pointing to you and that they are are not using javascript onmouseover to pretend that the links are going to your site but clicking them would bring you elsewhere.

I wish you well in your investigations.

[kgun]

This will not stop before Google earth or similar tools combined with DnStuff, geolocation etc. will locate the building where the server is. Then local police takes with them enough evidence and have the ability to identify the site on the server and close the server without argument. In worst cases they take the server with them.

[cppgenius]

Carol, perhaps it is a competitor trying to get your client's site penalised for duplicate content.

bj made a very good suggestion and blogging can be a very powerful tool.

We can take a look for you and see if there is something we can do, but I can't make any promises because conventional methods will probably bring you no satisfying results. A carefully written blogpost without putting yourself at risk can yield much better results than trying to work through the right "channels" to get the information or the results you are looking for.

Send the offending domain in question through our contact page http://www.cybertopcops.com/contact.php if you want us to give it a shot.

[krisidious]

I offer the possibility that it is your competition trying to discount your page as duplicate content.

until I see the links I can't say much more... would you care to show us the websites?

[MarcThai]

Originally Posted by carol

Thanks for all your thoughts.

zephyrireland, i'll discuss contacting them with my client.

Michelle, we don't have any affiliates - good idea, but it doesn't apply...

bj, I really like your line of thought regarding the blog! Our page is just one page - and as I said, they have kept our links intact, so it's been a puzzle as to what they have to gain by doing this. But your suggestion that the scam may be for the 10 bucks (obviously not a lot for us but if they have some kind of widespread scam) then perhaps that's the point.

Thanks!!
carol

It's a puzzle, Carol, why anyone would do this. But as the site is causing no harm, and may even be benefiting you just ignore it...while keeping an eye on it. If anything changes in the future that could damage your business that would be the time to take action. Let sleeping dogs lie.

[chelle60]

a lot of site owners buy various iterations and variations of their main domain name, have the host set up redirects for them and then forget about them... add to that, they might try to protect their privacy in their DNS listing by subscribing to a privacy service like you described, only i don't think most let you buy into their service to see who's on the list... are you certain they don't own it?
i just went to work for a company where the owners bought the main domain name from someone else... once i started working on the site and got into the hosting control panel, i found out they also have at least four other top level domains there, as well as about 12 subdomains. only two of these subdomains actually have differentiating content... but in the successive ownership shuffles (as this thing has changed owners twice in the last three years), no one remembered all these things.

[Ify]

Did you do a whois lookup on privacy.ca? See the info below. With the data you have a name to complain to.
I have found that sending a "Cease and Desist" note to the culprit and coypying it to the registra (better still to the hosting company) usually works wonders.

If that fails to get their attention, then contact google, yahoo! or whatever search engine they show up in.

Ify
http://www.ideasnet.net
--
whois privacy.ca
Status: EXIST
Registrar: Internic.ca Corp.
Registrar-no: 29
Registrant-no: 589056
Domaine-no: 319376
Subdomain: privacy.ca
Renewal-Date: 2015/06/30
Date-Approved: 2000/10/03
Date-Modified: 2006/02/16
Organization: 3684466 Canada Inc.
Description:
Admin-Name: Jason Lavigne
Admin-Title:
Admin-Postal: 26 Auriga Drive
Ottawa ON K2E 7Y8 Canada
Admin-Phone: 613-221-1215
Admin-Fax:
Admin-Mailbox:
Tech-Name: Jason Lavigne
Tech-Title:
Tech-Postal: 26 Auriga Drive
Ottawa ON K2E 7Y8 Canada
Tech-Phone: 613-221-1215
Tech-Fax:
Tech-Mailbox:
NS1-Hostname: ns1.momentous.ca
NS1-Netaddress:
NS2-Hostname: ns2.momentous.ca

[carol]

I really love this forum - everyone is always so helpful and knowledgeable.

Ify, I did find the record for the domain in question - that's where I got the phone number (which isn't answered by a live person, just a recording). However, I did not contact their hosting company, which is another option. The Whois record also describes the Organization as "Blah Hair Design Ltd." Of course, the webpage on the domain has nothing to do with hair design.

Chelle60, thanks for the thought - but I'm the only one buying domain names and setting up sites for this client - and I've been his web person since 1996, so that's not the answer.

I may end up taking Marc's advice - the site is so small, I hate to make a mountain out of a molehill! But something in me just wants to understand WHY??

[Dinghus]

Well, if your page is ranked high up in Google, this will be the classic swap about to happen. What they do is copy your page exactly. Wait for it to get up at the same level as yours (providing G doesn't wipe them both out for dupe content) and then swap the links for their site.

[carol]

Yes, I could see where that would make sense.

But this is a small landing page created solely to be the object of a newspaper ad, and then he wanted this page to direct traffic to his main website, which is also a fairly new domain name (as of last fall).

Ultimately he might want to develop this domain, but right now it's just the one page.

[zeroflux]

Maybe I'm dense, but I feel like I'm missing something here. You stated that you designed a single page which by your own admission is basic, so what is it exactly that the offender copied? the graphics? the metatags? the content? your clients logo?

I'm not trying to be snarky, honest. I wouldn't call a single page a site and don't see what would be in it for your client to pursue something like this?!?

Color me confused :)

[CalgaryPix]

Thanks to Ify for the contact information - this sounds like the "cease and desist" order (to both culprit and ISP) should include "copyright infringement." That really seems to get the ISPs to act.

[weegillis]

Originally Posted by bj

If you know the person who owns the domain name that's copying your client's site, one thing you or your client can do is to blog about this.

Carol is telling the story, here, anonymously. What is gained by blogging, publicly?

Originally Posted by bj

...how well this outfit privacy.ca is "protecting" their client's privacy

Back handed publicity for privacy.ca, a legitimate firm that may not take kindly to their name being dragged through the mud for doing what 1000s of people pay them to do: protect personal privacy.

Originally Posted by bj

Questioning why the owner of the scraper page needs privacy might be fun too.

Is there some requirement that their home address and phone number be published on the internet just because a person owns a domain? Should they need to explain why their private information is protected by privacy.ca?

Originally Posted by bj

The only thing you shouldn't do is link to the scraper page, though including a screenshot and an unlinked url would do the job.

Best advice in this post: it protects the privacy of Carol's client, and prevents them from being dragged into this, or dragged down by it.

Originally Posted by bj

It may also result in the page quietly going away. Sunlight is a good disinfectant.

These things usually do quietly go away, even when we do nothing. Right is might, truth prevails.

Originally Posted by zephyrireland

Double check the HTML to ensure that the links are still actually pointing to you and that they are are not using javascript onmouseover to pretend that the links are going to your site but clicking them would bring you elsewhere.

The best advice in this thread, imho. This could actually lead Carol somewhere.

[petcampbell]

Last year I had 55 photos and 60 blog entries hijacked..
I was refered to

www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.htmlwhere I recieved some good info..
We sent a cease and desist letter..
It worked..
But sure gave me some headaches....

[carol]

Zeroflux, that is exactly my question - why would someone do this? They copied the entire page: text, graphics, links, the lines I commented out, my css file (external). Granted, there isn't much there. But why would someone do that? And my client isn't going to pursue it unless I can give him a reason as to why this is hurting him.

My point in asking the forum this question is to see if anyone can help me figure this out. And if I were to ignore it and something bad happens to my client's business (that I in my ignorant bliss had not realized!!) then I'm not doing my job.

weegillis - thanks also for your analysis. I have checked the links, and they are still pointing to us, but I will need to periodically re-check them.

Thanks to all - I still don't understand this but I truly appreciate everyone's input!
carol

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by carol

Can anyone give me any ideas as to why someone would do this?

Hi Carol. You said "the links on the page still link back to my client's site".

Maybe the person is endorsing your ad.

That's possible.

[petcampbell]

Sorry it took me a few to find this..

Notice of Copyright Infringement*

Dear [insert his name here]:

I am writing to inform you of my good faith belief and understanding that a
website hosted by[insert company name here] has intentionally violated copyright law by using my copyrighted works without my permission. This is a formal notice of infringement pursuant to the

Digital Milennium Copyright Act

and the federal laws of the United States.

[Insert Site Name] has violated my rights by reproducing, in electronic
form, multiple blog entries originally written by me and posted on my
Internet website. The infringing material, and original URLs of the
copyrighted material, are as follows:

Infringing Entry #1, located at [Infringing entry URL #1] was copied from my
website, where it appears at: [your website URL #1]

(list them all, in sequence, using the same format)

I am the original author of the copied work, and I hereby declare that the
material is being used without my consent and without the consent of any
other party authorized to give consent to the use of this material.

(list your name, address and telephone number)

I formally request that you, as the host of the website in question, either
take action to remove the infringing material or provide me with the name
and personal contact information of the infringer, so that I may proceed
with legal action to halt the infringing conduct.

I hereby declare, under penalty of perjury, that all of the information
contained in this Infringement Notice is true and accurate to the best of my
actual knowledge and that I am the copyright owner of the materials in
question.

Signed: [name]


This is according to the attorney, a standard infringment notice letter, which was sent 48 hours after 2 cease and desist letters sent at 48 hour intervals had already been sent.

[carol]

jtracking - I never thought of that! What a positive way to look at this. Thank you. That actually might make sense.

petcampbell - This is a valuable resource. I will be sure to make a copy, even if I don't need it this time (maybe someone else reading this thread will). Thanks!

carol

[weegillis]

While you cannot control what 'they' do, you can dictate "first to publish" status. Now that you know they've found and copied your site, it's time to see just how much they're watching it.

You could accomplish this by sequencing through a static image with a different file name every hour, day, or week, or whatever.

Of course, it follows that you honey pot the existing page by making obvious changes now and then, just not as frequently as the time stamp image name change.

Now you can monitor THEIR source code for changes that mirror yours. Regardless the rest of the content, your image-name time stamp is your evidence.

Your server logs will corroborate all the changes you perform, as well as potentially provide point of access IP information of the person at the other end. For instance, if they're using privacy.ca, it may follow that their domain is in Canada. Look for Canadian service providers in your access logs that match the time of the image-name change and you might find the culprit.

At least narrow it down. With more changes to your site, you may see the same IP repeated in your logs every time 'their' site changes. The longer you can reproduce this pattern, the stronger the case you have against the perp.

Good record keeping will be the key, from here on in. Document everything. If it ever comes down to an actual person, your logs will be the smoking gun.

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by carol

jtracking - I never thought of that! What a positive way to look at this. Thank you. That actually might make sense.

petcampbell - This is a valuable resource. I will be sure to make a copy, even if I don't need it this time (maybe someone else reading this thread will). Thanks!

carol

Never a problem. I'm just wondering when I get to have my pic up like yours! : )

[carol]

jtracking - I can definitely help you with that question - just go to the Member Photos Forum!
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=29672

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by carol

jtracking - I can definitely help you with that question - just go to the Member Photos Forum!
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=29672

Thank you Carol. I will check that link soon. : )