Adult Sites

It’s another revenge porn lawsuit: a Florida woman claims her ex-boyfriend uploaded some pornographic pictures he had taken of her to a variety of different websites / Adult Sites. This woman is outraged and has filed a handful of lawsuits against anyone involved.

You may remember the story we ran about 23 women who filed a class-action lawsuit against those who own Texxxan[dot]com, a website where users upload pornographic pictures of women (typically ex-girlfriends or ex-wives) without their consent, as well as GoDaddy for providing adult hosting services despite knowing full well what Texxxan[dot]com was all about.

Adult Sites: The Lawsuit

Just as with the Texxxan[dot]com lawsuit, it is holding a wide range of parties responsible. But is this going to fly in court? The Florida woman, Holly Jacobs, is suing her ex-boyfriend Ryan Seay, the four websites that posted the pictures, and the shared hosting companies that allowed these sites to post the pictures. But Seay did more than just post pictures!

The lawsuit says that Seay “took appropriated, or otherwise obtained pornographic images” of Jacobs while they were still together. When they broke up, Jacobs says he “began publishing pornographic photographs and video of the plaintiff as well as plaintiff’s name, occupation, details about her schedule, and other personal and private facts about the plaintiff on various websites.”

Adult Sites: Revenge Porn Sites Or Not?

The problem: these sites aren’t exclusively revenge porn sites. Jacobs lists the four sites — anonib[dot]com, pinkmeth[dot]tv, sextingpics[dot]com, and xhamster[dot]com — and labels them revenge porn sites. She says the sites “traffic in pornographic photographs of young women and children as well as private facts and details of the victims.” However, if you view the sites, that isn’t necessarily the case.

Upon visiting XHamster, you see that it isn’t about revenge porn at all, just porn in general. The site states, “we created a perfect platform for users to share their own amateur content and for producers to advertise their professional works.” Pinkmeth[dot]tv is nowhere to be seen, apparently offline, and AnonIB may have pornographic content, but again, it is not revenge porn-specific. Sextingpics, on the other hand, seems to be all about revenge porn.

Adult Sites: What About The Shared Hosting Companies?

Although Jacobs names the companies providing adult hosting services to these four sites, it isn’t likely she’ll claim a victory here. Why? Web hosting companies are granted immunity for the content their customers post for the most part, thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

In fact, the sites themselves may be protected by this very same Section 230. It all depends on their involvement in going through the content users submitted.

According to legal scholar Eric Goldman regarding the GoDaddy revenge porn case, “The legal question isn’t close.” Despite Section 230, a judge opted not to allow GoDaddy to remove its name from the lawsuit. In the judge’s words: “After reading the authorities presented to the court and considering the arguments of counsel, it is my opinion that the Motion to Dismiss should be denied at this time.”

What Jacobs Wants

In her quest to hold all parties accountable for public disclosure of private facts, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, she is looking to stop these images from being distributed on the Internet Adult sites, as well as money (surprise, surprise.)

Ultimately, she wants to see these types of sites / Adult sites banned altogether. She has founded a group called End Revenge Porn, working with lobbyists to convince lawmakers to pass a bill to make the act of posting pornographic pictures or videos with personal information attached to any website, including social media sites, a felony.

Most people probably agree that sites like this shouldn’t be allowed. However, do you think that the shared hosting companies should be held accountable for the actions of the site owners? Let us know how you feel!

You may remember years ago when the adult hosting site for ‘Perfect 10 Magazine’  sued Google, Amazon, and the credit card processing company CWIE for numerous allegations, which included unfair competition, copyright and trademark infringement, violation of the right of publicity;  and false advertising, amongst others.

The adult hosting site’s battle against Google ended in 2012 after a long and drawn-out eleven-year legal nightmare. Google was being sued over copyright infringements, including Google’s use of cached images. The case was dismissed despite ‘Perfect 10’ offering $25,000 to any person who could prove wrongdoing (which no one ever cashed in on).

Cheap Hosting Lawsuit Perfect 10 v. Google

Google was sued by Perfect ten back in 2001 when the adult hosting site requested a permanent injunction against Google to keep it from copying and distributing thumbnails of images from their magazine, as well as attempting to stop Google from linking to sites that illegally hosted Perfect 10 content.

The court initially agreed that Google should not be using the thumbnails. But later on, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling. They said Google’s use of the thumbnails was “fair use.”

Perfect 10, unhappy with this ruling, fired back with various secondary liability claims. Most were supported by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and of course, opposed by the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Eight gruelling years of legal battles and two unsuccessful requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, it moved to the District Court. Google and the adult hosting site pointed fingers at each other, claiming they were breaking the rules. And towards the end, Perfect 10 went the unconventional route to justice, releasing this plea for readers to help out:

“Perfect 10 is offering $25,000 to the person who provides us with the most compelling non-public evidence of Google’s illegal conduct between now and February 28,2012…” the public appeal stated.

It did not generate any evidence for the adult hosting site.

The End Of The Battle

Ultimately, Google and Perfect 10 agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice. A Google representative wouldn’t say if there were a behind-closed-doors settlement involved.

Why A Dismissal?

Why would the cheap hosting site agree to dismiss the case? It probably has something to do with the fact the court asked Perfect 10 to open its books, showing the court all communications within the company regarding the lawsuit. Was there something they wanted to hide? It is certainly possible.

No True End In Sight

Yes, Google and the adult hosting site have had the suit dismissed. However, the other suits are still going strong. Their other suits, copyright cases against companies like Amazon, Hot-file, Mega-upload, and more, are still going strong. They have added Yandex, Russia’s version of Google, to the list of defendants, as well as Tumbler.

What Can You Learn?

Unless you are a search engine, not much, it is because Google is a search engine and not directly hosting the material that they were not found to violate copyright laws. The thumbnails on their image results page directly direct you to Perfect 10’s homepage.

You need to know this: ensure that all pictures and materials on your website are yours or that you’ve been granted permission to use the materials. You do not want to find yourself in court: it won’t be as easy as it was for Google.

Do you think Google should have been found guilty? Do you agree with the court’s decision?

From artificial intelligence to state-of-the-art infrastructure development approaches, US companies aim to partner with their peers to accelerate innovative technologies and solutions into the Indian market. In a session on Digital Water, Dr. Ravi Kota, Minister of the Economic – Embassy of India, Washington, said, “The United States can be a great ally in building India’s Digital foundation for the water sector.” Xavier Chauvet De Beauchene, Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development said that the bank is very proud of all the work done in India. “Who would have thought 5 years ago that 550 million people would stop defecating in the open in India.” He added that there is a massive shift in the Indian Government’s approach from focusing only on infrastructure development to working with people and bringing about behaviour change.

He also emphasized the importance of data. “The problem cannot be solved if it is not understood and quantified.” India has also taken many endeavours in this direction. He observed many tasks at the work-in-progress stage, but it’s a perfect start. Mr. Ben Grumble, Secretary of Environment, Maryland, stressed the need for nations to learn from each other’s experiences. He said that “equity” of water is very essential and shared the success story of the US Clean Water Act. Interestingly, India, too, has launched the ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ with the goal of equal water distribution to all. Usha Rao Monari, Senior Advisor at Blackstone Infrastructure Group and Board, presenting the Thames River cleaning up case, said that a good mix of policy and finance led to effective river cleaning. Notably,

The discussion was organized as a part of the 5th India Water Impact Summit by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and the Center for Ganga River Basin Management and Studies (cGanga).

Shri Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, NMCG, said, “We are glad that our efforts are being recognized by the international fraternity now.” He attributes the success of the Namami Gange Mission to his team, volunteers, academicians, and many self-help organizations who are working continuously towards the cause of cleaning Ganga and her tributaries under the vision of the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, and the guidance of the Minister of Jal Shakti, Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Source: Press Release Release ID: 1680425 Date: December 13, 2020 PIB Delhi Ministry of Jal Shakti