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Recently,
a person (possibly a company) made
a complete copy of an archived version of our website and posted
it on their website at www.lawtrack.com. Since most of our visitors
have investigation websites of their own, we'd like to share our
experience to help you protect your company website from theft and
other forms of online fraud. During the next several days
we will be posting helpful hints, links to articles and
discussions, and recommendations for what to do if this happens to you.
Take a
look at the website at www.lawtrack.com, and compare it
to our officially archived version at
http://web.archive.org/web/20030127004509/http://www.einvestigator.com/.
It is quite obvious how similar the site are - right down to
design, layout, affiliate programs, banners, links, link
descriptions, privacy policy and even the spelling mistakes. We analyzed the code on the
site, and documented numerous instances where our unique code
existed, and even documented occurrences of OUR OWN affiliate
codes still existing on their site.
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Screenshot of our archived
bookstore |
Screenshot of their current
bookstore |
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Following are some recommendations for handling a situation of
this nature (this section is under development).
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Educate yourself
about copyright law and the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
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If the website
lists an email address, send an email to let them know you
are aware they have copied your site. In some cases,
letting them know you are aware of the theft is enough to
scare them away. However, in some cases, you may
encounter a fool who thinks he has done nothing wrong.
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Conduct a WhoIS
search to determine the registered owner of the domain name.
This will also provide information on the hosting company.
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Send an email to
the hosting company to inform them of the situation.
Although you may be required to fully document the issue in
writing, ISPs usually act quickly to remove a site if it
violates copyright laws, contains stolen information, or is
conducting fraudulent activity.
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Contact any
affiliate programs the offending website has signed up for
an inform them that they have violated intellectual property
rights by copying and using your copyrighted material.
Let's us know your thoughts on
the issue:
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