Forging Court Orders Is No Way to Delist Bad Reviews

[Garrett Sussman]

The Scheme

Michael Arnstein, the CEO, at first tried to do things the right way. He hired lawyers and shelled out quite a bit of money in order to get a court order to delist several websites that were posting these misleading and false reviews.

Unfortunately, after the initial success, new sites just kept popping up. So rather than re-wage the same legal battle, he just took the court order he won that directed Google to delist certain links, and photoshopped it to swap out one set of links for the newest ones, and sent that to Google. He was under the firm belief that Google doesn't actually verify the delisting court orders they receive, and would just comply. He was very wrong.

@keyserholiday @JoyHawkins You ever seen this type of 'review fraud'? That's a pretty elaborate scheme and Google caught him. Cheating never prospers, but also highlights that you can't cut corners even when you're trying to find justice.

Forging Court Orders Is No Way to Delist Bad Reviews

 

[JoyHawkins]

I heard about this. Insane the lengths people will go to for this stuff!

 

[keyserholiday]

There is no way to hide forever. Soon or later it will catch up to you.

 

[djbaxter]

See also CEO sentenced to prison for attempt to force Google to remove defamatory reviews

 

[Tim Colling]

There is no way to hide forever. Soon or later it will catch up to you.

We recently heard a sermon at my church that is applicable to situations like this. Topic was on the book of Obadiah and "the law of the harvest" which was described as meaning:

1. We will always get what we give
2. The harvest seldom comes up overnight.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Wow, that article really details how sucky it is for people trying to get defamation removed from the internet. Something needs to change.