Ripoff Report
Encyclopedia
Ripoff Report is a privately owned and operated for-profit website
founded by Ed Magedson. The Ripoff Report has been online since December 1998 and is operated by Xcentric Ventures, LLC which is based in Arizona. Ed Magedson is the site’s Editor-in-Chief.
Companies who have been named in a report may choose to respond by submitting a “rebuttal” which explains their side of the story. Like reports, rebuttals may be posted for free by anyone with a user account. However, Ripoff Report may limit the number of rebuttals filed per-report and may decline to publish rebuttals in certain cases.
This policy was the subject of a 2007 lawsuit against the Ripoff Report which involved an author’s request to remove several reports he submitted in which he referred to a Canadian company as a “scam”. In a published ruling, Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 544 F.Supp.2d 929 (D.Ariz. 2008), the court found that Ripoff Report was not required to remove reports in this context.
Plaintiffs have also attempted to remove reports by suing the author and obtaining an injunction
requiring the removal of the offending content. In one case, Blockowicz v. Williams, a federal district court in Chicago found that Ripoff Report was not required to comply with such an injunction. Some observers have stated this outcome was legally correct but morally troubling. The plaintiffs in the Blockowicz case appealed the district court’s refusal to enforce their injunction against Ripoff Report. On December 27, 2010, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion, Blockowicz v. Williams, --- F.3d ---, 2010 WL 5262726 (7th Cir. 2010), which affirmed the lower court’s decision and agreed that Ripoff Report was not required to comply with the lower court’s injunction.
On day after the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in Blockowicz, a Florida state court reached the opposite conclusion in Giordano v. Romeo, No. 09-68539-CA-25 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Dec. 28 2010). In Giordano, the court held that the law allowed it to issue an injunction requiring Ripoff Report to remove a complaint posted by a third party. One observer called the court’s decision “a baffling and clearly erroneous ruling.” Ripoff Report is currently appealing the ruling.
, 47 U.S.C. § 230(c), websites like the Ripoff Report are protected from most forms of civil liability arising from user-generated content
. This protection applies even if the website hosts material which is false and even if the site does not take any steps to investigate content prior to publication or remove content after receiving notice that the material is false. Protection also extends to editorial changes made by the website operator itself, as long as such editing does not alter the meaning of the original third-party content.
Because of the site’s steadfast refusal to remove complaints, many lawsuits have been filed against the Ripoff Report claiming the site does not qualify for protection under the CDA or that such protection has been lost due to its alleged solicitation of defamatory content, its refusal to remove content which is false, and its alleged alteration and/or modification of reports or their titles. For a variety of reasons, none of these cases have ever reached trial.
In one frequently cited case from 2004, a federal court in Texas in MCW, Inc. v. Badbusinessbureau.com LLC, 2004 WL 833595 (N.D.Tex. 2004) held that Ripoff Report may not be entitled to CDA immunity. This part of the ruling was based on the fact that the plaintiff claimed that Ripoff Report itself created defamatory material as opposed to simply hosting material created by a third party. Based on these allegations, the court determined that CDA immunity would not apply because, "Contrary to the defendants' arguments, MCW is not seeking to hold the defendants liable for merely publishing information provided by a third party. Rather, MCW is seeking relief because the defendants themselves create, develop, and post original, defamatory information concerning [the plaintiff]." MCW, 2004 WL 833595, *9.
Critics of the Ripoff Report sometimes claim that Ripoff Report "lost" the MCW case. However, after finding that the plaintiff's allegations were sufficient to overcome CDA immunity, the court in MCW found that it lacked jurisdiction
and the case was dismissed on that basis. According to a summary of the case from the Citizen Media Law Project, the plaintiff "MCW appealed the ruling, but later voluntarily dismissed its appeal." More recent legal decisions have generally rejected the argument that MCW establishes that Ripoff Report is not entitled to CDA immunity.
Other notable cases involving the Ripoff Report include the following:
Several people and businesses listed on Ripoff Report have allegedly hired the Defamation Action League
, an organization run by William L. "Bill" Stanley (possibly a pseudonym), who is listed as one of the world's top 200 spammers, to attempt to make Magedson and his business partners remove specific reports. In return, Magedson filed a lawsuit under RICO. On June 21, 2007 a preliminary injunction was granted against DefamationAction.com and ComplaintRemover.com. Stanley and his associates were found liable for defamation and making death threats. Robert Russo, who claims not to be part of the Stanley group—but who does own ComplaintRemover.com, filed an answer, defenses and a counter-suit in the case. The parties reached a settlement on May 15, 2009.
In February 2007 The Phoenix New Times
reported that at least 30 companies now pay Ripoff Report for participation in the Corporate Advocacy Program. The current number of participants in the program is not known, however the site makes no effort to conceal the identity of program members – a search for “corporate advocacy” conducted on the site returns more than 1,600 results with titles clearly announcing the name of any company that has joined the program.
Several companies have sued Ripoff Report based on claims that the Corporate Advocacy Program is unlawful. None of these claims have ever succeeded at trial. On July 19, 2010, a federal court in Los Angeles, California entered an order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Ripoff Report in a case which alleged that the Corporate Advocacy Program was "extortion" and that the program violated federal racketeering laws. The court's order in Asia Economic Institute, LLC v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, Case No. 10-CV-01360 stated that the Corporate Advocacy Program was not extortion under California law because, "The offer to help Plaintiffs restore their reputation and facilitate resolution with the complainants in exchange for a fee does not constitute a threat under California Penal Code § 519." Based on the determination that the services offered by Ripoff Report do not constitute extortion, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Ripoff Report as to the plaintiffs' extortion claim.
This threat warns would-be plaintiffs that if they bring a lawsuit against the Ripoff Report and lose, Ripoff Report may respond by filing a new lawsuit against the unsuccessful plaintiff (and possibly their attorneys) for malicious prosecution
. This type of action is commonly referred to as a “SLAPP-back lawsuit” which derives its name from the acronym for strategic lawsuit against public participation
or “SLAPP”.
Ripoff Report does not disclose how many SLAPP-back lawsuits it has brought in the past. However one such action was filed on July 18, 2011 in federal court in Arizona against several parties and their attorneys. According to the Complaint, Ripoff Report alleges that the defendants brought a lawsuit against the site in January 2010 which was based on false and fabricated allegations of racketeering and extortion. The underlying matter, Asia Economic Institute, LLC, et al., v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, et al. was resolved in favor of Ripoff Report in May 2011 with an order granting summary judgment in favor of Ripoff Report as to all claims in the case. As the prevailing party in the earlier case, Ripoff Report’s SLAPP-back lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $75,000 plus an unspecified amount of punitive damages
.
On May 26, 2011, Ripoff Report filed a lawsuit in federal court in Arizona against the operator of a competing website located at www.scaminformer.com. According to Ripoff Report's Complaint, the ScamInformer website illegally copied more than 25,000 pages of material from Ripoff Report, illegally removed copyright ownership information from each page, and altered the dates of certain material so as to make it appear the information was posted to ScamInformer before it was original posted on Ripoff Report. The lawsuit against ScamInformer seeks copyright infringement
damages of "not less than $63,000,000", plus injunctive and other relief.
On May 10, 2011, Ripoff Report filed a similar action for copyright infringement relating to a "copycat" website located at www.reportaripoff.co. According to the Complaint, Ripoff Report alleged "Since at least November 2010, Defendants ... have engaged in a campaign to willfully infringe Plaintiff’s ... Copyright and to engage in deceptive and unlawful commercial use of Plaintiff’s registered trademarks ... ." The lawsuit seeks damages, attorney's fees, and injunctive relief.
In December 2008, Ripoff Report filed a Complaint in federal court in Arizona against a competitor, ComplaintsBoard.com, accusing it of violating U.S. copyright law by stealing “large quantities of copyrighted works from the Rip-off Report site without … permission or consent.” The lawsuit further alleged that ComplaintsBoard violated U.S. trademark law by using Ripoff Report’s name and trademarks to “mislead consumers” resulting in “substantial actual confusion among consumers” as to the relationship between the two websites.
ComplaintsBoard failed to respond to the lawsuit and in October 2009, a default judgment was entered in favor of Ripoff Report which awarded damages, attorney’s fees, and costs of more than $60,000.00. The judgment also included a permanent injunction
prohibiting ComplaintsBoard from using Ripoff Report’s name or content in the future. Ripoff Report was later awarded an additional $40,000 in attorney’s fees and other costs against ComplaintsBoard.
s, giving these complaints significant public visibility. Because the Ripoff Report does not verify reports for accuracy before they are published, many critics have complained that the site creates a safe haven for the publication of false or fabricated reports.
In May 2009, Ripoff Report filed a lawsuit against a Washington state-based Search engine optimization firm, SEOmoz.org, claiming that the site made false statements about the Ripoff Report in an article entitled The Anatomy Of A Ripoff Report Lawsuit. Ripoff Report's lawsuit against SEOmoz was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. The complaint also claimed that SEOmoz encouraged third parties to file frivolous lawsuits against Ripoff Report.
On February 4, 2010, Ripoff Report's lawsuit against SEOmoz was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. In its ruling, the District Court held that the defendants (residents of Washington state) were not subject to personal jurisdiction in Arizona because publishing allegedly false statements on the Internet is, standing alone, not sufficient to expose the defendant to jurisdiction in the plaintiff's home state. Ironically, courts have reached the exact opposite conclusion in other cases in which Ripoff Report was a defendant. In another case, the court found that Xcentric was properly subject to personal jurisdiction in Tennessee based on the publication of reports about a Tennessee-based company. (EASI v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 2007 WL 15577202 (M.D.Tenn. 2007), United States District Court in Tennessee.)
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
founded by Ed Magedson. The Ripoff Report has been online since December 1998 and is operated by Xcentric Ventures, LLC which is based in Arizona. Ed Magedson is the site’s Editor-in-Chief.
Background
The Ripoff Report allows users to post complaints known as “reports” which contain details of the user’s experience with the company or individual listed in the report. The site requires users to create an account which includes a valid email address before reports can be submitted. There is no cost or charge to users who wish to create a report. According to the site’s Terms of Service, users are required to warrant that their reports are truthful and accurate, but the site itself does not investigate or confirm the accuracy of reports. As of February 2011, the Ripoff Report contains more than 600,000 unique reports.Companies who have been named in a report may choose to respond by submitting a “rebuttal” which explains their side of the story. Like reports, rebuttals may be posted for free by anyone with a user account. However, Ripoff Report may limit the number of rebuttals filed per-report and may decline to publish rebuttals in certain cases.
Criticism and controversy
Some aspects of the Ripoff Report have been the subject of significant criticism. Some of this criticism has resulted in litigation against the site. The Ripoff Report maintains a very lengthy section on the site devoted to discussing many of these issues and explaining the site's position as to each issue. The page includes Ripoff Report’s answers to various questions including:- Why Ripoff Report Doesn’t Remove Reports
- Why Isn’t Ripoff Report Legally Responsible For False Postings?
- Policy Regarding Lawsuits By Non-US Companies
Non-removal Policy
One of the more controversial aspects of the Ripoff Report is its policy against removing reports. Unlike some other message boards or blogs, Ripoff Report does not allow authors to remove their own reports and the site will not remove reports in response to legal demands from attorneys. This policy is disclosed to users in the site's Terms of Service. The front page of the site explains the reason for this policy as follows: “Unlike the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report does not hide reports of “satisfied” complaints. All complaints remain public and unedited in order to create a working history on the company or individual in question.” A longer discussion of the policy is found on the site’s Frequently Asked Questions page.This policy was the subject of a 2007 lawsuit against the Ripoff Report which involved an author’s request to remove several reports he submitted in which he referred to a Canadian company as a “scam”. In a published ruling, Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 544 F.Supp.2d 929 (D.Ariz. 2008), the court found that Ripoff Report was not required to remove reports in this context.
Plaintiffs have also attempted to remove reports by suing the author and obtaining an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
requiring the removal of the offending content. In one case, Blockowicz v. Williams, a federal district court in Chicago found that Ripoff Report was not required to comply with such an injunction. Some observers have stated this outcome was legally correct but morally troubling. The plaintiffs in the Blockowicz case appealed the district court’s refusal to enforce their injunction against Ripoff Report. On December 27, 2010, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion, Blockowicz v. Williams, --- F.3d ---, 2010 WL 5262726 (7th Cir. 2010), which affirmed the lower court’s decision and agreed that Ripoff Report was not required to comply with the lower court’s injunction.
On day after the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in Blockowicz, a Florida state court reached the opposite conclusion in Giordano v. Romeo, No. 09-68539-CA-25 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Dec. 28 2010). In Giordano, the court held that the law allowed it to issue an injunction requiring Ripoff Report to remove a complaint posted by a third party. One observer called the court’s decision “a baffling and clearly erroneous ruling.” Ripoff Report is currently appealing the ruling.
New Arbitration Program
Despite its long history of refusing to remove complaints, in July 2010, Ripoff Report announced a new program called “VIP Arbitration” which has the stated purpose of offering victims of false reports a new way to clear their names. According to the site, the arbitration program involves private, third party arbitrators who are paid to review disputed reports and render decisions about their accuracy. Although Ripoff Report is well known for its refusal to remove reports, the site now explains: “Any statements of fact that the arbitrator determines to be false will be redacted from the original report.” The site has also posted an updated FAQ page with an additional discussion of the arbitration program. The page includes links to examples of how reports look after being submitted to the program. The current cost of the program is $2,000.Litigation Involving Communications Decency Act Immunity
According to a United States law called the Communications Decency ActSection 230 of the Communications Decency Act
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is a landmark piece of Internet legislation in the United States, codified at...
, 47 U.S.C. § 230(c), websites like the Ripoff Report are protected from most forms of civil liability arising from user-generated content
User-generated content
User generated content covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream usage during 2005 having arisen in web publishing and new media content production circles...
. This protection applies even if the website hosts material which is false and even if the site does not take any steps to investigate content prior to publication or remove content after receiving notice that the material is false. Protection also extends to editorial changes made by the website operator itself, as long as such editing does not alter the meaning of the original third-party content.
Because of the site’s steadfast refusal to remove complaints, many lawsuits have been filed against the Ripoff Report claiming the site does not qualify for protection under the CDA or that such protection has been lost due to its alleged solicitation of defamatory content, its refusal to remove content which is false, and its alleged alteration and/or modification of reports or their titles. For a variety of reasons, none of these cases have ever reached trial.
In one frequently cited case from 2004, a federal court in Texas in MCW, Inc. v. Badbusinessbureau.com LLC, 2004 WL 833595 (N.D.Tex. 2004) held that Ripoff Report may not be entitled to CDA immunity. This part of the ruling was based on the fact that the plaintiff claimed that Ripoff Report itself created defamatory material as opposed to simply hosting material created by a third party. Based on these allegations, the court determined that CDA immunity would not apply because, "Contrary to the defendants' arguments, MCW is not seeking to hold the defendants liable for merely publishing information provided by a third party. Rather, MCW is seeking relief because the defendants themselves create, develop, and post original, defamatory information concerning [the plaintiff]." MCW, 2004 WL 833595, *9.
Critics of the Ripoff Report sometimes claim that Ripoff Report "lost" the MCW case. However, after finding that the plaintiff's allegations were sufficient to overcome CDA immunity, the court in MCW found that it lacked jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
and the case was dismissed on that basis. According to a summary of the case from the Citizen Media Law Project, the plaintiff "MCW appealed the ruling, but later voluntarily dismissed its appeal." More recent legal decisions have generally rejected the argument that MCW establishes that Ripoff Report is not entitled to CDA immunity.
Other notable cases involving the Ripoff Report include the following:
- Asia Economic Institute, LLC v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, U.S. District Court, Central District of California Case No. 10-CV-1360 (May 4, 2011) (summary judgment granted in favor of Ripoff Report due, in part, to CDA immunity);
- Herman & Russo, P.C. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia Case No. 10-CV-398 (Feb. 14, 2011) (summary judgment granted in favor of Ripoff Report due to CDA immunity);
- Intellect Art Multimedia, Inc. v. Milewski, 2009 WL 2915273 (N.Y.Sup. Sept. 11, 2009) (claims against Ripoff Report dismissed for failure to state a claim due to CDA immunity);
- GW Equity, LLC v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 2009 WL 62173 (N.D.Tex. 2009) summary judgment entered in favor of Ripoff Report based on CDA immunity)
- Global Royalties, Ltd. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 544 F.Supp.2d 929 (D.Ariz. 2008) (claims against Ripoff Report dismissed pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b) (6) without leave to amend based on CDA immunity);
- Whitney Info. Network, Inc. v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 2008 WL 450095; 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11632 (M.D.Fla. Feb. 15, 2008) (summary judgment entered in favor of Ripoff Report based on CDA immunity).
Other Lawsuits Against Ripoff Report
Many other companies have sued Ripoff Report, but so far none of these cases have ever been resolved against the site. Some previous suits can be reviewed at Citizen Media Law Project. A partial list of recent cases includes the following:- A lawsuit was filed against Ripoff Report in New York in January 2010 seeking $11 million in damages. The complaint also asserts claims against Magedson and against Google.
- On February 11, 2010, a lawsuit was filed in Georgia. The entire complaint appears to have been copied verbatim from another case.
- On January 27, 2010, a lawsuit was filed against Ripoff Report in California, accusing Ripoff Report and Magedson of attempted extortion and RICO Act violations, among other claims.
- On March 12, 2010, a lawsuit was filed against Ripoff Report in New Jersey. The complaint includes claims for RICO/extortion and seeks damages of $33,333,333.00.
Several people and businesses listed on Ripoff Report have allegedly hired the Defamation Action League
Defamation action league
The Defamation Action League was started in January 2007 by professional spammer William Stanley in order to force the shutdown of the websites Ripoff Report and duplicate Badbusinessbureau.com - consumer complaint websites run by Ed Magedson.- Methods :...
, an organization run by William L. "Bill" Stanley (possibly a pseudonym), who is listed as one of the world's top 200 spammers, to attempt to make Magedson and his business partners remove specific reports. In return, Magedson filed a lawsuit under RICO. On June 21, 2007 a preliminary injunction was granted against DefamationAction.com and ComplaintRemover.com. Stanley and his associates were found liable for defamation and making death threats. Robert Russo, who claims not to be part of the Stanley group—but who does own ComplaintRemover.com, filed an answer, defenses and a counter-suit in the case. The parties reached a settlement on May 15, 2009.
Default Judgment Against Ripoff Report and Ed Magedson
Despite its track record of successfully defending cases brought in U.S. courts, in July 2003 a default judgment was entered against the site in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court High Court of Justice for EC$27,100,932.00. The award, made in Eastern Caribbean currency rather than U.S. dollars, has not been recognized or enforced by any U.S. Court. With the recent passage of the SPEECH Act of 2010 which prohibits U.S. courts from recognizing foreign judgments if they conflict with U.S. law, it is unlikely that any foreign judgments against Ripoff Report would be enforceable in the United States.Corporate Advocacy Program and Extortion Claims
Some of the harshest criticism is focused on Ripoff Report's "Corporate Advocacy, Business Remediation & Customer Satisfaction Program". The operation of the program is described in detail on the Ripoff Report website's Corporate Advocacy Program page. The program requires companies to pay a fee to Ripoff Report in exchange for which the site will act as an intermediary between the company and any unhappy customers who have posted complaints on the Ripoff Report site. Companies who join the program must agree to meet certain conditions including a promise to make refunds when requested. In return, while existing reports are not removed, the Ripoff Report's editor, Ed Magedson, will update the titles of reports to reflect that the company has joined the program and has made a commitment to increasing customer satisfaction.In February 2007 The Phoenix New Times
Phoenix New Times
The Phoenix New Times is a free, weekly Phoenix, Arizona newspaper, put out every Thursday. It is the founding publication of the New Times Media , but The Village Voice is now the flagship publication of that company....
reported that at least 30 companies now pay Ripoff Report for participation in the Corporate Advocacy Program. The current number of participants in the program is not known, however the site makes no effort to conceal the identity of program members – a search for “corporate advocacy” conducted on the site returns more than 1,600 results with titles clearly announcing the name of any company that has joined the program.
Several companies have sued Ripoff Report based on claims that the Corporate Advocacy Program is unlawful. None of these claims have ever succeeded at trial. On July 19, 2010, a federal court in Los Angeles, California entered an order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Ripoff Report in a case which alleged that the Corporate Advocacy Program was "extortion" and that the program violated federal racketeering laws. The court's order in Asia Economic Institute, LLC v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, Case No. 10-CV-01360 stated that the Corporate Advocacy Program was not extortion under California law because, "The offer to help Plaintiffs restore their reputation and facilitate resolution with the complainants in exchange for a fee does not constitute a threat under California Penal Code § 519." Based on the determination that the services offered by Ripoff Report do not constitute extortion, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Ripoff Report as to the plaintiffs' extortion claim.
Ripoff Report's “SLAPP-back” Lawsuits Against Unsuccessful Plaintiffs
Ripoff Report’s legal FAQ page contains a warning to anyone who might be considering suing the site: “any suit filed against us without probable cause may subject the complaining party and/or their attorneys to liability in the State of Arizona for wrongful use of civil proceedings. We don’t mean to sound harsh, but if you knowingly file a frivolous lawsuit against us, regardless of where your case is filed, you and/or your lawyers can be subject to a lawsuit in Arizona in which a jury could, if appropriate, award both substantial compensatory and punitive damages against you.”This threat warns would-be plaintiffs that if they bring a lawsuit against the Ripoff Report and lose, Ripoff Report may respond by filing a new lawsuit against the unsuccessful plaintiff (and possibly their attorneys) for malicious prosecution
Malicious prosecution
Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort, while like the tort of abuse of process, its elements include intentionally instituting and pursuing a legal action that is brought without probable cause and dismissed in favor of the victim of the malicious prosecution...
. This type of action is commonly referred to as a “SLAPP-back lawsuit” which derives its name from the acronym for strategic lawsuit against public participation
Strategic lawsuit against public participation
A strategic lawsuit against public participation is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition....
or “SLAPP”.
Ripoff Report does not disclose how many SLAPP-back lawsuits it has brought in the past. However one such action was filed on July 18, 2011 in federal court in Arizona against several parties and their attorneys. According to the Complaint, Ripoff Report alleges that the defendants brought a lawsuit against the site in January 2010 which was based on false and fabricated allegations of racketeering and extortion. The underlying matter, Asia Economic Institute, LLC, et al., v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, et al. was resolved in favor of Ripoff Report in May 2011 with an order granting summary judgment in favor of Ripoff Report as to all claims in the case. As the prevailing party in the earlier case, Ripoff Report’s SLAPP-back lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $75,000 plus an unspecified amount of punitive damages
Punitive damages
Punitive damages or exemplary damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit...
.
Ripoff Report's Lawsuits Against Competing Sites
In addition to defending itself from lawsuits, on several occasions Ripoff Report has also acted as a plaintiff and has sued competitors who were accused of stealing content from Ripoff Report in an effort to increase their own popularity by expanding the amount of material on their competing sites.On May 26, 2011, Ripoff Report filed a lawsuit in federal court in Arizona against the operator of a competing website located at www.scaminformer.com. According to Ripoff Report's Complaint, the ScamInformer website illegally copied more than 25,000 pages of material from Ripoff Report, illegally removed copyright ownership information from each page, and altered the dates of certain material so as to make it appear the information was posted to ScamInformer before it was original posted on Ripoff Report. The lawsuit against ScamInformer seeks copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
damages of "not less than $63,000,000", plus injunctive and other relief.
On May 10, 2011, Ripoff Report filed a similar action for copyright infringement relating to a "copycat" website located at www.reportaripoff.co. According to the Complaint, Ripoff Report alleged "Since at least November 2010, Defendants ... have engaged in a campaign to willfully infringe Plaintiff’s ... Copyright and to engage in deceptive and unlawful commercial use of Plaintiff’s registered trademarks ... ." The lawsuit seeks damages, attorney's fees, and injunctive relief.
In December 2008, Ripoff Report filed a Complaint in federal court in Arizona against a competitor, ComplaintsBoard.com, accusing it of violating U.S. copyright law by stealing “large quantities of copyrighted works from the Rip-off Report site without … permission or consent.” The lawsuit further alleged that ComplaintsBoard violated U.S. trademark law by using Ripoff Report’s name and trademarks to “mislead consumers” resulting in “substantial actual confusion among consumers” as to the relationship between the two websites.
ComplaintsBoard failed to respond to the lawsuit and in October 2009, a default judgment was entered in favor of Ripoff Report which awarded damages, attorney’s fees, and costs of more than $60,000.00. The judgment also included a permanent injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
prohibiting ComplaintsBoard from using Ripoff Report’s name or content in the future. Ripoff Report was later awarded an additional $40,000 in attorney’s fees and other costs against ComplaintsBoard.
Domain Name Disputes
Ripoff Report has occasionally taken action to shut down imposter sites by using ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy or UDRP. Such actions have included the following:- Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. Domain Privacy LTD, Case Number: FA0710001087178 (domain name
ordered transferred to Ripoff Report)
- Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. WhoisGuard, Case Number: FA0802001153351 (domain name
ordered transferred to Ripoff Report)
- Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. Mark Johnson, Case Number: FA0806001203824 (domain name
ordered transferred to Ripoff Report)
- Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. YDS Web Solution, Case Number: FA0912001298258 (domain names
, , , , , , ordered transferred to Ripoff Report)
- Xcentric Ventures, LLC v. Report A Rip Off, Inc, Case Number: FA1012001363406 (domain name
ordered transferred to Ripoff Report)
High Search Engine Visibility and Search Engine Optimization
Complaints posted on the Ripoff Report are often highly ranked on search engine results pageSearch engine results page
A search engine results page , is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the Keywords have matched content within the page...
s, giving these complaints significant public visibility. Because the Ripoff Report does not verify reports for accuracy before they are published, many critics have complained that the site creates a safe haven for the publication of false or fabricated reports.
In May 2009, Ripoff Report filed a lawsuit against a Washington state-based Search engine optimization firm, SEOmoz.org, claiming that the site made false statements about the Ripoff Report in an article entitled The Anatomy Of A Ripoff Report Lawsuit. Ripoff Report's lawsuit against SEOmoz was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. The complaint also claimed that SEOmoz encouraged third parties to file frivolous lawsuits against Ripoff Report.
On February 4, 2010, Ripoff Report's lawsuit against SEOmoz was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. In its ruling, the District Court held that the defendants (residents of Washington state) were not subject to personal jurisdiction in Arizona because publishing allegedly false statements on the Internet is, standing alone, not sufficient to expose the defendant to jurisdiction in the plaintiff's home state. Ironically, courts have reached the exact opposite conclusion in other cases in which Ripoff Report was a defendant. In another case, the court found that Xcentric was properly subject to personal jurisdiction in Tennessee based on the publication of reports about a Tennessee-based company. (EASI v. Xcentric Ventures, LLC, 2007 WL 15577202 (M.D.Tenn. 2007), United States District Court in Tennessee.)