FDitto post

[rabidsamfan]

Okay. I checked, and yeah, someone was trolling last night for FD posts. The legal page at FD says that they'll remove things at the request of the copyright holder, but then it has this zinger at the end.

10. Correspondence with Friendi*tto
Should you choose to present your e-mail address, physical home address, telephone number, full name or other personally identifying information to Frie*nditto by any means whatsoever, we reserve the right to publish said personal information in whole or in part. Should you chose to contact any member of Frien*ditto.com by any communication means, Fr*ienditto reserves the right to publish the conversation, in whole or in part, as seen fit to do so. Any and all e-mails may also be published in whole or in part. By communicating with Friendit*to.com staff, you consent to said publication and acknowledge you have no expectation of privacy whatsoever under federal or state law for materials discussed and/or submitted. Legally privledged materials and communication, and/or communication concerning an active ongoing law enforcement investigation will be kept confidential as required by law.


Emphasis mine.
Asterisks added to foul up search engines.

So if I write you and say remove my post you'll publish my correspondence including any personal information I might have had to include to prove I'm the copyright holder?

This isn't stupidity, this is malice.

ETA. Some good research on the topic here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/applecameron/83998.html

Comments

[abby-normal.livejournal.com]

And illegal, actually. If you write them and negate their 'passive permission' (which is what all the above is) then they are legally obligated to abide by your instructions. If you write them saying 'I do not give you permission... yada...' and they publish it anyway, they've broken the law.

This is the same 'line busting' thing the phone companies got in trouble for. They take over service without you knowing it and by paying their bill, you're saying okay to thier service. Um, no. You have a right to say 'take it off, I do not give you permission' and they are legally bound to comply.

These are people who know just enough about the law to be scary but not enough to actually succeed, should someone draw them into a legal confrontation. Yes, it's best to just avoid any contact but anyone who decides to fight them on legal grounds will win.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, but it didn't look legal to me, either. It's sure as hell meant to discourage people from interfering with them, though!

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Oh, how utterly creepy. I hope this site crashes and burns some time soon...

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Someone has agreed with you, apparantly.

[ainu-laire.livejournal.com]

*still trying to figure out what this friend... thingy is and why people use astericks in it*

So, let me get this straight... if you sign up with this... thing, they can view all of your private entries and post them public to the world?

God, this is confusing.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I put asterisks in the name because one of the founders of the so-called service was encouraging his friends to play troll in the posts that warned people about Fienditto (add an r after the F). He was using a search engine to find the entries and the asterisks just seemed easier than fighting with trolls.

If you wanted to "archive" a public post on FD, you wouldn't need a password, but if you wanted to archive a f-locked post, you'd put your username and password in. FD said it wouldn't keep the passwords, but nobody who knows anything about the people who set it up -- a group called LJDrama -- believes them for a minute.

Once someone has your username and password, they have access to everything you do. Your profile, your private entries, and all the f-locked entries from people who have you on their friends list.

Once an entry was submitted to FD, it was copied in its entirety -- with comments -- to another server. Which means even if you deleted that entry on your journal it would still be out there. It was also copied to a community on LJ, where everyone could see it. In other words, private entries were made public.

They've been hacked now, so the whole thing may be moot, but don't forget -- they didn't make it sound like a bad thing. It was presented as a shiny way to "save" things for yourself. While some of the fd users may have been malicious, some may have merely been unwise.

[ainu-laire.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. I myself wouldn't trust it for a minute.