Pirates on Facebook

[Rowena, Group Owner]

Astatalk is a pirate site. One of many. We don't usually even mention these sites. However, once they set up camp on Twitter, or GoodReads (not yet, I hope!) or Facebook, they could do immense damage.

On the following Facebook page, at the bottom on the left is a "Report This Page" text link. Possibly the Facebook owners do not know that Astatalk is a hotbed of infringing activity from Astatalk's description:

Astatalk is an underground social network and information exchange system — all in one. Astatalk was created to give people an opportunity to discuss underground related topics — software reverse engineering, untraditional download sources and many more.



http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=Astatalk&init=quick#!/pages/Astatalk/234956477134?v=info&ref=search

[Guido]

I just reported them, too. It'll be interesting to see if Facebook will actually do something about it and how long it takes for them respond to such reports.

[A.F.]

I clicked on their site and got this warning from my firewall: This site has been categorized as:
Hacking / Proxy Avoidance Systems. I added it to the report to Facebook.

[Guido]

That's a cool thing to add.

[A.F.]

Guido wrote: "That's a cool thing to add."

I figured Facebook might take the report more seriously if the firewall was blacklisting it.

[Rebecca J]

I reported them too. Hope this helps.

[Guido]

I just reported them again, since Facebook doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. Not that it surprises me as Facebook has always been operated by a bunch of dummies, it seems.

I am also getting tired of how hard they make it to actually report copyright infrinctions. You have to fill out forms with details and specifics, etc. ad nauseam. It is not my repsonsibilty to waste my time because Facebook/Yahoo/or-who-knows-who doesn't have proper methods in place to deal with these things properly.

I think there should be some legislation that says that the operator of the site has to make it easy to report these violations, and that it is their responsibility to investigate these alleged violations regardless of details.

Ahh... I have to get out of here. It gets me all worked up...

[Rowena, Group Owner]

Facebook does not allow good citizens to report pirate profiles. They suggest that we tell the copyright owner.

Their business model relies on the improbability that good citizens have John Grisham's private email address, or David Baldacci's, or J D Robb's, or Heather Graham's, or J K Rowling's, or Dan Brown's.

"If You Are Not The Actual Victim, Shut Up And Go Away" is no way to approach crime.

[A.F.]

Facebook is being questioned over many of its privacy policies. Maybe you should start a Facebook group to change their attitude toward pirate profiles.

[Rowena, Group Owner]

A.F. Knowing my luck, I'd be banned for starting a hate group.

My comment on having my friendship accepted by "Good Ereader" has been deleted. Apparently, if they delete the friendship, any comment I write on my wall is deleted, too.

[A.F.]

Rowena wrote: "A.F. Knowing my luck, I'd be banned for starting a hate group.

My comment on having my friendship accepted by "Good Ereader" has been deleted. Apparently, if they delete the friendship, any commen..."

You and I have the same luck, it seems.

[Rowena, Group Owner]

It appears still to be there.

[Ilovetoread]

I tried to contact Facebook several months ago. We had gotten a wireless router and had an aquaintance of my daughters hook it up for us. My daughter-in-law had tried to do it already and kept getting some kind of page from my service provider asking for account information. I thought the guy who hooked up the wirless might have to call for tech support from my service provider and whenever I have had to do that I've had to use my username and password to reset my modem. The username is also my email name. Ironically I don't use that email for anything other than contact with the ISP. I had left home for a doctors appointment and when I returned home the wireless router was working and the guy said he'd had no problems. I went online and checked my email and luckily I had set the one associated with my account to forward emails to the address I use. There was a confirmation email from Facebook about my new page. I thought what the heck and went to look at it. I couldn't log in because I didn't know the password. I guess I'm lucky this guy didn't change my email password. To reset a password at Facebook they send you an email. So I reset it and got to the page. Their wasn't anything there except my name and I'm not sure what this guys purpose was. He denied doing it but it couldn't have been anyone else. I already had a Facebook page that I use to connect with family and friends so I tried to contact Facebook to ask to have the page removed. It wasn't very easy to find their contact information and when I did find it I emailed several times and got no reply. The page is still up over 4 months later. To me this experience was similar to identity theft. Ignoring pirates, not doing anything about false accounts..I still want to say not doing anything about identity theft but I'm not sure what someone would call what was done to me. Either way it doesn't say much for Facebook.

[Rowena, Group Owner]

If you have an account or page that you do not want on Facebook, there is a blue text link at the bottom of the Account Settings page (I think) that says "Delete This Account".

Persevere. Things have changed recently, and it might be easier than you think to do it yourself.

:-)

Rowena Cherry
Report ebook piracy http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

[Ilovetoread]

Thank's Rowena :). You are a wealth of information.

[Rowena, Group Owner]

I lovetoread, you are most welcome. :-)