It was just last week that I discussed the infiltration of fake profiles on dating websites. Well, it looks like a new court case may be tackling that very same issue, though this time the problem isn’t with an affiliate marketer using fake profiles for profit, but rather a Craigslist griefer looking to humiliate people with fake causal sex postings.

Jason Fortuny, the person resonsible for posting the fake profile, has the same attitude toward his online actions as many of the so-called internet marketers I’ve talked about previously. Perhaps the best example is this disturbing quote from Fortuny:

“If I made the mistake of telling secrets to someone I didn’t know online and it got out…I’d be kicking myself pretty hard. I would most definitely be shouting expletives at my computer screen. But that’s the risk we all take online, as well as in life. Whether it’s someone’s e-mail, picture, or personal ad, there’s no guarantee of identity, and no guarantee that you won’t be betrayed. And there never will be.”

That right there frightens the hell out of me. He agrees that being tricked into exposing your information and being humiliated online would be terrible - basically admitting that he did exactly what he’d hate have happen to himself. His reasoning seems to be that since the internet is already a risky place for your information, he may as well contribute to the problem by scamming people and humiliating them. This makes absolutely no sense. Just because there’s a bunch of people beating up on a kid in the corner doesn’t mean you should join in.

Many of the online dangers out there are perpetuated by individuals with the exact same attitude - that others are doing it, so why can’t I? It has taken the courts a while to catch up to the digital age - and while they still have some work to do - they are definitely making some progress. Sure, some things like the RIAA attacks are where the law has taken a few steps back, but hopefully there will soon be some accountability for these people who decide stepping on others is an acceptable means to an end.

Fortuny you decided to harm others for your own amusement. For that, I hope this court case finds in favor of the victim and if at all possible perhaps set a precedent for future scammers to be wary of.

In the market for a new domain name but the one you want is already registered? If you plan on entering an auction for that domain at GoDaddy, you may want to think again as the head of GoDaddy’s domain auctions has recently been caught bidding against its customers. The employee, Adam Dicker, was able to acquire some domains while hiking up the price on those he didn’t win.

Many people are already skeptical with online auctions where bids are kept secret and anonymous. Imagine if ebay didn’t display the number of bids, who bid, and how much the current bid is? Then, add on top of that an eBay employee going around bidding on various items while having access to all that information. Yeah, that wouldn’t fly for a second, but apparently when it comes to domains and GoDaddy, there’s little penalty.

I don’t know about you, but that’s enough info for me to not trust GoDaddy with any of my domains. Sure, this is just their auction counterpart, but that kind of lack of ethical responsibility means I won’t be doing business with them any time soon.

In part 1 of my Fake Profiles series, I talked about how people use fake profiles on social networking sites like MySpace to create large friends lists that are nothing more than lead lists to push various marketing efforts. In part 2 I will be focusing on how (and why) people use fake profiles for online dating websites like Match.com and Yahoo Personals.

Like social networking sites, dating websites have become big lead sources for internet marketers (aka, spammers and scammers) to attack. With online dating websites they are able to focus directly on a particularly lucrative niche - singles looking for dates. Having such a valuable and focused niche has drawn all sorts of seedy Web individuals to exploit these types of websites and users by creating fake profiles in an attempt to lure unsuspecting singles seeking net-goers.
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Yet another rediculous Web-related lawsuit has been filed - this time against companies that use wish lists for products. The lawsuit comes from Channel Intelligence, a company with a patent that looks like it covers the creation of lists in databases.

This reminds me of the absurdity of Amazon’s One-Click patent which basically had Amazon controlling the rights to one click purchases on websites. Seems like something somebody made up as a spoof or something right? Well, I wish it was just a joke, and while Amazon’s One-Click patent was partially restricted, much of it still exists.

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Last week I reported that eBay had been fined by French courts for certain illegal sales made on its auction website. Well, apparently the US courts aren’t quite as ignorant as the net’s freedom was defended against stupidity as the trademark accusations brought up in a similar lawsuit were completely rejected by US courts.

While it’s definitely a relief that at least some court out there isn’t going to hold a service provider responsible for the actions of its users, it also shows just how differently responsibility and blame is treated. With something as global as the internet, how are new services and technologies going to survive and grow if each region decides to handle the Web so differently? It’s not like this is the first case where a Web company has had to deal with such varying internet policies in different regions - Google censoring searches in China is a big one that jumps to mind.