The first issue is clear, at least to me: this is public information and they have a right to republish it, like it or not.
On the second issue, I don't understand why this is not extortion. Obviously this is because my understanding of what constitutes extortion is faulty. Can any lawyers here explain?
(Perhaps she wants to sell it to a like-minded buyer, and you're therefore devaluing the property. Too fucking bad, right?)
A problem that I could see the mugshot sites running into is that they imply guilt, when the mugshots were only for arrests. Intentionally misleading someone seems a lot like libel.
I think even many of the most ardent defenders of free press would take exception to a newspaper whose business model consisted of charging people not to write about them. Especially if they provided a bare minimum of factual information and then invited users to "tag" the photo with "suggested" terms like "scary, wtf, wino, beat-up", like one of the websites linked from the article.
> "Wow - it does seem to come pretty close to the line," Robert Weisberg, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, said upon learning about such sites. "I'd say it skirts the line but may stop just short. (It) depends on how a reasonable person would perceive this in terms of fear."
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/net-us-usa-interne...
Pro tip: offering to sell the only copies of a photograph is not a threat to publish.
1. We already have a court-system that's _suppose_ to be giving out fair punishment for crimes. Adding another "fine"(pay to get mugshots removed) to it I don't think is needed.
2. What happens if I start re-publishing mugshots? And then another person? And then another? How many fees is this person suppose to pay to stop it?
3. More likely than not, the person who's mugshot is online is probably not rich. Probably needs all the money they can get. Having to spend it on getting mugshot-copies removed from online I think is terrible, like kicking someone when they're down.
4. And finally, this is my biggest issue with this by far. It is assumed the person who got arrested actually deserved it. I, personally, have nearly zero faith in the American law enforcement and criminal system. I think it's almost completely corrupt and extremely bias towards certain groups. So the fact that people who've already been unfairly victimized by a broken system, once again having to pay X number of person(s) to get it removed from the internet is just plain unethical.