Thoughts on the Online Extortion Business of Mugshots
blog.safeshepherd.com
blog.safeshepherd.com
Now, the worst part of the whole experience was when we found our mugshots plastered all over search results for our names. The results rank pretty high in some cases too, higher than some social media sites. The problem with this whole situation lies in two places in my opinion, one being the fact that your mugshot is posted online right when you get arrested, whether or not you are convicted. And two, that there aren't any restrictions put in place by the government sites that release these pictures. I am all for net neutrality, but this is most definitely an invasion of privacy.
And there are so many of these mugshot sites that you will never be able to completely remove your face from every single one of them. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same asshole owns a majority of these sites and puts your mugshot on a different site as soon as you pay to get it taken off another.
I wonder how many states/countries make arrest records & mugshots available publicly online?
For every arrest/mug shot, do some basic SEO stuff with the person's name, city and state to have the best chance of hitting the first page of Google, and charge people $50 to get it removed.
I've never been arrested, but if I was (even if in error), I'd sure as hell pay $50 to get my mugshot off the front page of a Google search.
In the US, at least, if something is not illegal and will make money, then corporations are legally required to take that path - morals and ethics simply don't come into play.
As our ever increasing need for profit increases, I can only see this trend continuing more and more. The reality is if I'm not willing to make such a site on "moral" grounds, someone else will, and they'll get all the money for doing it.
Luckily most of the entrepreneurs I know are taking a different route and creating businesses that solve problems instead of creating them. Nothing is wrong with making money, but I can think of 1000 other ways than extortion.
This is not illegal, so it's not "extortion".
(I'm just playing devil's advocate here, trying to better understand our collective reasoning)
Although this assertion gets repeated over and over on the internet, I think it is a gross distortion of American laws on the fiduciary responsibilities of corporate officers to say that corporations are legally required not to have moral standards that have not been codified as laws or governmental regulations.
Google for example cited ethical reasons for pulling out of the Chinese market. Did any of Google's shareholders sue Google over that decision?
Did any shareholders sue Apple over their recent decision to tighten up its oversight of its Chinese manufacturer's treatment of factory workers?
Bad publicity has the potential to hurt profits.
Contra-example 1: Apple, Google and Microsoft all have significant cash reserves, far more than are necessary for foreseeable needs, and probably earn much less on them than on cash invested in the business, but it isn't illegal for them to hold large reserves. Outside observers have said that these companies resist paying out more of the reserves as, say, dividends because of the tax consequences to the controlling shareholders but, under US law, this is not illegal.
Contra-example 2: Many companies are 'going green' to some degree of green. Often this is more expensive than less environmentally friendly options. However companies are not being charged with violating some law that requires them to make all decisions based on direct profit maximization.