Publishers Association Sends Whiny Complaint Letter To Dean After Academic Librarian Discusses Sci-Hub

from the oh-grow-up dept

It's no secret that big publishing companies (especially academic publishing companies) really really dislike Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub, of course, is the quite interesting site that enables academics to access and share PDFs of published scientific research. We've written about it a bunch, including Elsevier's ridiculous legal crusade against the site, which has only served to act as a huge advertisement for the site. As we noted, using copyright to shut down Sci-Hub seemed to go entirely against the purpose of copyright, which was officially designed to promote "learning" and scientific knowledge.

Nonetheless, the publishers really, really hate it. But even so, it seems pretty ridiculous for the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to freak out so much about an academic librarian just mentioning Sci-Hub while on a panel discussion, that it would send an angry letter to that librarian's dean. But, that's exactly what AAP did, in complaining about comments by librarian Gabriel Gardner to his dean, Roman Kochan, at the University Library for California State University. The letter, signed by AAP President Thomas Allen seems to suggest that any moderately positive comment about Sci-Hub should be banished from any academic discussion:

I am disappointed to learn that a librarian from California State University, Long Beach, Gabriel Gardner, recently praised the notorious pirate site Sci-Hub and recommended that attendees at a session use the site. Mr. Gardner was a panelist at the American Library Association's session "Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland - a Panel Discussion About the Future ofinterlibrary Loan" at the association's annual conference in Orlando. On the panel he said, essentially, "Try it, you'll like it."

Sci-Hub has been enjoined from further operation as an unlawful enterprise that has committed mass theft of copyrighted material. Sci-Hub should not be equated with any legitimate interlibrary loan or open access publishing practices.

It goes on to whine about how horrible Sci-Hub is (yes, a tool for free access to scientific research and knowledge is being derided here...), and then whines about silly ideas like "academic freedom."

As a member of the California State University system it is surprising that a CSU Long Beach librarian would promote the activities of an adjudicated thief who has compromised university computer systems and databases worldwide.

Unfortunately, Sci-Hub supporters invoke academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of scientific inquiry, and encouraging universal access to the results of scientific research to justify the theft of intellectual property. Such rationalizations do not in my opinion justify providing public encouragement for unquestionably illegal activity to institutions and the scholarly communication system. I believe such public encouragement from one of your librarians is inconsistent with the university library's mission and its leadership in support of scientific research.

The recipient of the letter, Dean Roman Kochan, was, to put it mildly, not that impressed with Allen's letter, and notes that Allen seemed to be freaking out over absolutely nothing. In fact, Kochan notes that most of Gardner's comments about Sci-Hub were actually focused on its illegal nature. And, he points out, that Gardner's comments were related to an article that Gardner had co-written pointing to problems with this kind of crowdsourced research sharing.

Their article, "Fast and Furious (at Publishers): The Motivations behind Crowdsourced Research Sharing," is based on a survey of users of peer-to-peer research-sharing services on the frequency of, and the motivations behind, their use of these services. They conclude that these services "go beyond document delivery to the legal bedrock that is our current copyright and intellectual property systems." So, contrary to your allegations that the researchers provided "public encouragement" of services such as SciHub, their research points out the very real problems with this type of crowdsourcing.

[....]

Besides the legal cautions in the C&RL article, Mr. Gardner has been quoted on #icanhazPDF, and in the 2015 Conference Proceedings of the Association of College & Research Libraries as saying that such peer-to-peer sharing is "ethically dubious" and "often violate[s) commercial database terms-of-service (ToS) and/ or copyright." Specifically, regarding the ALA annual conference panel, "Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland a Panel Discussion about the Future of Interlibrary Loan," your paraphrase of Mr. Gardner's statements is taken very much out of context. If you listen to the recording of his presentation, he says that Sci-Hub's actions are "massive piracy" and "totally illegal." To an audience of librarians, he was suggesting that librarians need to try the service to see how easily Interlibrary Loan and authentication systems can be bypassed.

In other words, not only did Allen and AAP send a really stupid letter, they picked the exact wrong target. This does not speak well of the AAP and its willingness to understand even basic nuances.

Of course, now that Kochan has the AAP's attention, he figures it's probably not worth wasting, and goes on to point out the real problem: the fact that the publishers AAP represents are basically pricing everyone out of the market:

However, the larger issue here is that the academic publishing model has become unsustainable. Like many university libraries, the library budgets at California State University Long Beach and the California State University generally cannot sustain annual price increases of 3% to 10% by many of your organization's members. Journal subscription prices are a key part of the reason that extra-legal services, such as Sci-Hub flourish. As you know, the music industry and the movie industry have faced similar challenges. One substantial difference with scholarly journal publishing, however, is that the "artists," the scholars who conduct the research and write the articles, receive no monetary compensation. As the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution states, the purpose of copyright is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Rarely do AAP members give their authors such rights.

We would hope that AAP would want to be part of the solution to unsustainable academic publishing models. Instead of fighting legislation such as Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), or criticizing researchers who are shining a light on a very real publishing dilemma, AAP could use its considerable clout to promote new scientific publishing models. After all, as AAP describes it, the organization's historic role is to "promote literacy, defend freedom of speech, advance scientific progress, and stimulate the intellectual and cultural discourse that is central to a healthy democratic society."

Bravo. Though it will almost certainly fall on deaf ears.

Still, what is it with organizations like the AAP so focused on "protecting" the way things used to be that they can't even bother to think about the way things are actually heading and how to adapt?

Filed Under: academic publishing, complaints, gabriel gardner, libraries, roman kochan, thomas allen
Companies: aap, association of american publishers, sci-hub

Newspaper Association Of America Complains That Comedian John Oliver Failed To Solve Newspaper Biz Model Problem

from the maybe-your-priorities-are-a-little-off dept

You may have seen that on Sunday, John Oliver's main bit this week was about the collapse of the local newspaper business. It's a pretty typical John Oliver piece -- and definitely on a topic that we've discussed many times in the past -- media business models. However, we didn't see much of a need to write about it... until the Newspaper Association of America decided to whine about it, mainly complaining that Oliver (1) didn't offer any solutions and (2) mocked companies that are trying, no matter how ridiculous their efforts are:

However, other than encouraging people to "pay for" more news, he doesn't offer any answers. More particularly, he spends most of the piece making fun of publishers who are just trying to figure it out. Whatever you think of the name "tronc" and that company's announced growth strategy, at least they are trying new things and trying to figure out how to create great news journalism in the digital era. John Oliver doesn't seem to have any better ideas.

The fact is that we are in a transitional phase within the entire industry. People want, need and consume more hard news than they ever have. The core demand for the product isn't decreasing at all, and based upon that we will find our way to the far shore where the industry is thriving and growing once again. But in the meantime, there is going to be a lot of experimentation and evaluation of new business models. Some experiments will work and some won't, and our VP of Innovation, Michael MaLoon is committed to keeping you up-to-date on what is happening on that front. But making fun of experiments and pining away for days when classified ads and near-monopolistic positions in local ad markets funded journalism is pointless and ultimately harmful.

I would just ask Mr. Oliver to spend more time talking about what the future of news could be, and less time poking fun at publishers who are trying to get there.

This is pretty ridiculous. First of all, much of the mocking was over the Tribune Company's ridiculous rebranding as "tronc," and specifically the absolutely ridiculous "tronc employee video" the company put together, that I still am partially convinced is a parody of the kind of idiocy big newspapers put out these days to pretend they get technology. "Artificial intelligence!" "The future of journalism!" "Tech startup culture!" "Evolving, changing -- the fun part!" "Optimization group!" "Feed it into a funnel and then optimize it!" "Maximize all the time." "Monetize video!" "The role of tronc is to transform journalism -- from pixels to Pulitzers." I mean, the video is inherently mockable. It's cringeworthy bad. I would have been disappointed if Oliver hadn't included it in his story. It's that bad.

And, really, despite the fact that we -- among many others -- have argued that Oliver and his team do real journalism at times -- at its core, his show is about comedy. Of course he's going to mock stupid stuff. Why shouldn't he? Expecting him to offer a "solution" is pretty silly. Whining about a comedian making fun of your failures to actually truly evolve seems like it should be fairly low down on the list of things the NAA should be focused on these days. If it's looking to comedians for solutions, and complaining when they don't provide any, perhaps the NAA itself should be spending a bit more time exploring how its members can evolve and adapt.

Filed Under: business models, complaints, john oliver, newspapers
Companies: naa, newspaper association of america

As Broadband Usage Caps Expand, Complaints To The FCC Skyrocket

from the pay-more-for-the-same-service dept

For several years now, broadband providers have been taking full advantage of the lack of competition in the broadband market by expanding usage caps and overage fees. More recently, companies like AT&T, Comcast and Suddenlink have taken this practice one step further by charging users a $10 to $35 per month surcharge if consumers want to avoid usage caps. In other words, consumers are paying more money than ever for a service that costs less and less to provide, thanks again to limited competition in the broader broadband market.

And while companies like Comcast have used the same approach seen in the boiling frog metaphor to slowly expand its usage cap "trials" and hope nobody notices, people are definitely noticing the rising temperatures. The Wall Street Journal filed an FOIA request with the FCC, and has found that consumer complaints about broadband caps have been skyrocketing over the last year:

"Fearful of crossing data limits, some customers say they are canceling the streaming services, including Netflix, Sling TV and Sony PlayStation Vue. Consumer complaints to the Federal Communications Commission about data caps rose to 7,904 in the second half of 2015 from 863 in the first half, according to records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act. As of mid-April, this year’s total was 1,463."

Though we've warned about this for years, the Journal almost-but-not-quite comes to the realization that usage caps have nothing to do with congestion or financial necessity, and everything to do with hamstringing Internet video and protecting legacy TV revenues. Companies like SlingTV and Netflix make that abundantly clear in their comments to the Journal, though Comcast clings to a familiar narrative in trying to justify why it's charging more money for the same service:

"Comcast says its aim is to ensure the heaviest users are paying more than lighter ones, since 50% of its bandwidth is consumed by just 10% of its customers. Comcast set up the trials to show “people who are consuming the most should carry more of the bill rather than raise everybody’s bill by the same amount,” says Marcien Jenckes, executive vice president of consumer services at Comcast."

But we've long noted how that justification is nonsense. The cable industry itself admitted years ago that congestion had nothing to do with usage caps. Comcast's own leaked support documents and comments from company engineers have also acknowledged as much. Meanwhile, if a small fraction of your customers are consuming an "excessive" amount of bandwidth (and ISPs never provide hard data on this front), you could easily push them to business-class tiers without having to impose a draconian and confusing new pricing paradigm on your entire customer base.

No, Comcast is imposing usage caps to simultaneously cash in on, and thwart, Internet video. Granted the company can't just come out and admit that, so we often see flimsy claims that imposing huge new rate hikes on its entire userbase is about fairness, even if Comcast's cost to deliver broadband services remains fixed or declining. Not too surprisingly, Comcast tells the Journal that the company's a gift to the Internet and would never, ever behave anti-competitively:

"We everyday contribute to the use and the growth of the Internet,” Mr. Jenckes says. “There is absolutely no anticompetitive belief or objective."

The reality is that when it comes to complaints about caps, we're only starting to see the tip of the consumer annoyance iceberg. Not only are companies expanding usage caps, companies like Comcast are now exempting their own content from these caps -- a fantastic way to give their otherwise underwhelming Netflix alternatives an unfair advantage in the market. Other companies like AT&T are using usage caps to attack cord cutters in another way, by socking them with overage fees unless they sign up for traditional TV services they may no longer even want (something AT&T tells the Journal is just a "really compelling" offer).

And despite the soaring complaints, and the broad anti-competitive implications of such arbitrary limits, the FCC has remained largely mute about usage caps -- often supporting the industry narrative that this is just "creative pricing experimentation." The hope at the FCC has been that its policies to encourage broadband competition will make a specific crackdown on usage caps unnecessary, but so far it certainly hasn't worked that way. Though less talked about, it's also a problem that the FCC has failed to ensure that ISP usage meters are accurate; as a result they often aren't, with some consumers being billed for usage when their modem is off or the power is out.

Broadband competition isn't going to magically fix itself, and outside efforts like Google Fiber or community broadband are only helping a fraction of the market. As such, complaints submitted to FCC systems will only grow as more and more consumers realize that usage caps and overage fees are a giant con perpetrated on an already annoyed and captive market.

Filed Under: broadband, complaints, consumers, data caps, fcc, isps, usage caps

Comcast, Which Wanted To Become Even Bigger, Leads The ISP Pack In Consumer Complaints To The FCC

from the comcan't dept

We've talked a lot about Comcast here at Techdirt, mostly because between the company's broadband cash-grab caps, its great big middle finger to the concept of net neutrality, and its (haha) customer service, there's just a never ending wealth of stories to write up and Mike only lets us out of the dungeon for porridge after we write enough posts. And, as we bring 2015 to a close, it's kind of fun to remember that Comcast wanted to be an even bigger corporate thing with its intended merger with Time Warner Cable.

Especially when you consider that Comcast is already the ISP most efficiently producing customer complaints with the FCC. ArsTechnica filed an FOIA request with the FCC to get an idea of how many complaints were lodged against which ISPs. Turns out Comcast is outpacing them all.

So we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FCC, seeking information on three major types of Internet provider complaints: availability, billing, and speed. In those categories, Comcast received 11,812 complaints so far this year (from January 1 to November 9). AT&T got 3,896 such complaints, Verizon got 1,588, and TWC had 1,240. In total, AT&T, Verizon, and TWC received 6,724 such complaints—5,000 fewer than Comcast alone.

Digging in, the biggest factor in complaints by Comcast customers is the company's broadband caps and the overage chargers incurred should users go over the caps. For the largest player in the field, and one that wanted to become even larger, it's interesting that the company has a customer-angering policy that limits broadband usage at a time when data usage is growing and not shrinking. Keep in mind that Comcast itself admitted this was all about cashflow rather than capacity on the network. Its difficult to imagine how a company that is bucking the demand of the market could exist, never mind thrive, except in the barely-competitive marketplace that's been setup in the United States.

That point is driven home even more so when you consider that Comcast is both the largest ISP and the most widely despised along with the fact that it has the most FCC complaints levied against it per customer.

It isn’t surprising that Comcast received the most complaints, since it’s the largest ISP in the US and has regularly ranked at or near the bottom of its industry in customer satisfaction. Comcast also is the subject of much negative media coverage and attention from consumer advocacy groups, which may encourage more customers to file complaints.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear Comcast receives far more complaints on a per-customer basis than do other top ISPs. Comcast has 22.9 million broadband subscribers, compared to 15.8 million for AT&T, 13 million for TWC, and 9.2 million for Verizon, Leichtman Research Group reports. For wireline broadband, that means AT&T, TWC, and Verizon have a combined 38 million customers—about 15 million more than Comcast, even though the three firms together receive far fewer complaints.

And this is the company that sought government approval to become even larger, more unwieldy, and better able to thumb its nose at its customers? Please. While it was nice to see the merger denied when it happened, missing is the dropping of the other shoe, which ought to have been the realization that the ISP market is suffering from a severe lack of options and competition. No business so reviled should be so successful as Comcast. It's the hallmark of a broken system, yet we hear little about any attempts to repair it.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband caps, complaints, consumer complaints, customer service, fcc, television
Companies: comcast

Complaints To FTC About Roca Labs Shows Company Threatening, Ignoring Unhappy Customers

from the '24/7-customer-service'-must-refer-to-the-hours-it-DOESN'T-respond-t dept

Roca Labs says it can help you lose weight by pumping your stomach full of its proprietary Fix-a-Flat-but-for-humans concoction. Once the product sets in, your stomach will have much less room for food. You'll eat less, lose weight, or spend hundreds of dollars trying!

If you find Roca Labs' product suspect or aren't happy with the results, you have a few options available. You can try to get your money back, but that seems to be a route not worth taking. You can complain about the product, but then you'll face the possibility of being sued.

Roca Labs has sued people for posting negative reviews. Roca Labs has threatened to sue people for writing about the lawsuits filed against reviewers. Roca Labs has also sued opposing lawyers, alleging some sort of internet conspiracy to ruin its "good" name. Roca Labs has also threatened to sue us two separate times. Those it hasn't sued, it has hit with bogus DMCA notices.

Judging from its recent history and the complaints filed with the FTC (acquired via FOIA request), Roca Labs appears to spend a majority of its income on marketing and litigation. Customer service expenditures seem to be hovering around $0.

First, there are the legal threats.

Very concerned as this product line is promoted as a "gastric bypass" for children, pregnant women, and overweight persons, but is a ingestible supplement.   I wrote about the product on my site, and was contacted by a lawyer in Israel and threatened to remove it or BUY three containers of the product, USE IT and rescind my posting. Absolutely NOT.

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If you as a blogger write anything about their product ads, which are incredibly outrageous, they send you a letter saying they will sue you. BUT, you can purchase the product, try it out, write a review and then they will refund your money.

---

I see the 5th paragraph of section of Merchandise Return & Refund Policy seems to violate the Right of Free Speech. The 5th paragraph says and I quote:"If, for whatever reason, you become dissatisfied with The Formula or The Support, you agree not to make, write, post, distribute or disseminate in any way any negative comments about,or relating to, Roca Labs, The Formula, or The Support. This includes writing anything on the internet and making a complaint with Paypal, your credit card company, the Better Business Bureau, etc... Doing so, in light of these clear terms and conditions, would constitute breach of contract and defamation and would be actionable in Florida court. If you can cannot agree to this, The Company asks you not to purchase The Company’s product.

Sure enough, Roca Labs' Terms and Conditions contain a stupid non-disparagement clause [emphasis mine]:

You agree that regardless of your personal experience with RL, you will not disparage RL and/or any of its employees, products, or services. This means that you will not speak, publish, cause to be published, print, review, blog, or or otherwise write negatively about RL, or its products or employees in any way. This emcompasses all forms of media, including and especially the internet. This paragraph is to protect RL and its current and future customers from the harm of libelous or slanderous content in any form, and thus, your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts RL, its reputation, products, services, management, or employees. We make it clear that RL and its Regimen may not be for everyone, and in that regard, the foregoing clause is meant to prevent “one person ruining it for everyone.” Should any customer violate this provision, as determined by RL in its sole discretion, you will be provided with seventy-two (72) hours to retract the content in question. If the content remains, RL would be obliged to seek all legal remedies to protect its name, products, current customers, and future customers.

Noted directly below it is the fact that this clause is unenforceable in California -- the only state that bans non-disparagement clauses. It appears to be linked to a discount Roca will give you should you choose to be its gastric jelly ambassador, but it's worded in a way that it affects anyone who purchases its products. If you choose to disparage the company and have signed up to spread the Roca gospel, you'll forfeit the discount. Note the phrase "should ANY customer violate this provision."

Asking for a refund seems to be impossible. Complaints detail the fact that Roca Labs apparently offers no live customer service. On top of that, the company only gives you three hours to stop the shipment of your order. Anything later than that means you'll be charged the full amount. Roca Labs justifies its "no refund" policy by claiming each shipment is made from scratch and specifically tailored to each customer. Sales and shipments are one way only. If nothing else, customers can be assured their account balances will be thinner by the end of their Roca Labs experience.

[part of a CS chat transcript included in one complaint] Roca Labs Premium Support manager Sharon K. replied Hello (b)(6), There is nothing to cancel as no other shipments are due to you. Your procedural kit was shipped in full on 11413. When you ordered you chose to pay your balance in 3 easy installments, the first payment was taken out on 11313 and you have a balance of $420, which is 2 more payments of $210. You cannot cancel paying your balance as this is what you owe for what is shipped. We are so sorry to hear about the medical condition. The return policy was made clear to you several times before you ordered. http:www.RocaLabs.com/return We will be willing to consider partial refund after all payments are made and you have provided a letter from you doctor verifying your claim. You should note that unpaid balances are forwarded to the legal department and added fees are charged which can end up in Florida court with charges totaling $3,200 or so. We trust and love our customers and hope they will never abuse the credit we extend them so they can afford the procedure. Please get also familiar with the Terms of the purchase.

There are more than 100 complaints, most of which revolve around the fact that once Roca Labs has access to your credit card information (which it acquires during its "qualification" process), your account will be charged for the entirety of the purchase, no matter what. There are no refunds, no returns and -- as its Terms and Conditions state -- the company reserves the right to charge you even more if you make your unhappiness with the product public.

Roca Labs tells customers they need to cancel within three hours of placing an order and then makes it impossible for anyone to do that.

If you wish to cancel your order before it has been shipped, you must immediately contact the Customer Care Department via the Website in writing for a full refund.

But...

Generally, Customer Care/Support is available 24 hours, 7 days a week. We will make every effort to respond to you within one (1) business day of any written contact. For your protection after your order has shipped RL requires that all contact must be in writing with Customer Care/Support through the Website ONLY.

How will you know when your three-hour clock starts? Apparently, you won't. You have to run through Roca's "qualification" process before being approved. But apparently you'll only find out if you've been approved by Roca ringing you up for the purchase you haven't agreed to yet.

Went on line 2/16/14 and did app 2 c if qualify for product. Didn't receive any correspondence or confirmation, just a 210.00 charge on my CC.

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Application' process does not exist and there is no two hour cancellation window. Your acceptance turns out to be supplying your credit card number. Using my credit card, I placed an order for Roca Lab's diet product on May 4th @ 6:04 in the morning. The website discloses a 24 hour 'approval' process. It also states that after receiving 'approval' you have a two hour window to cancel the order. In less than 12 hours, after doing further research on the company, I called customer service to cancel the order. I was advised to send an email to the company. I did that and received an email stating that ' You placed your order on date & time . Your kit went into production on 3/4/2014 6:07 AM . Cancellation can ONLY be done by contacting our support desk at: Support@RocaLabs.com within 2 hours of submitting your health application' The website does not state this in the application screen. In fact it states that cancellation can be done after being 'approved'. I never received 'approval' from the company.

The inability to speak to anyone directly is noted repeatedly in the FTC complaints.

Unable to contact a human to talk about the product effectiveness or to change payment methods.

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I have been having problems because they arent deligently answering my every questions, everything is done by email

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YOU CANNOT SPEAK TO A REAL PERSON - you get messages via email or text, no real person! I even tried contacting the manager option (option 3)and only got a message back saying they know about my call.

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Tried to contact customer service on-line but found no way to do so. Everything was directed to a Nurse which cost money to get support…

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I tried sending the product back and paid $15.62 to return it, (after calling and not being able to talk to a real person) then they would not accept it…

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Charged twice for the 'processing of application fee I found it ironic that when contacted about the additional charge and the fact that we were concerned it may be a scam that we were notified it would be addressed within 24 hours. Their policy says if you cancel within the first 2 hours that they will refund. There is no way to contact them for immediate cancellation.

Then there's this, via Adam Steinbaugh -- taken from a deposition of a former employee of Roca Labs.

Q: At what point did you believe that Roca Labs was -- did you come to believe that Roca Labs was deceptive or unethical?
A. When he asked me to dress up like a fat person so I could talk to his customers online about the product that I had never taken and about the weight loss that I had never lost because I've never been on a diet in my life.

[...]

Q. Now, when -- when you were terminated on October 25th, that followed a conversation with Mr. Juravin; correct?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And the gist of that conversation was that you refused to sign the contract because of the nondisclosure agreement and the reduction in pay; right?
A. Yes.
Q. And in the course of that conversation you talked about the fat suit incident in connection with the nondisclosure agreement?
A. I did.

And this, which ties into Roca Labs' claims that every product it ships out is made uniquely for the person ordering it (justifying the "qualification" questionnaire and fee):

A. I don't know exactly the time period between the phone call and when I took the product. But we had not been opening the product in the beginning of my employ with him. We just started opening the product towards -- I guess into October he got a second shipment that was not -- he thought it had too much product. So he wanted to take some out and put it in smaller bags and that concerned me when I saw that he was opening the powder.

[...]

A: I just thought that really shouldn't be -- you know, a product that people consume shouldn't be taken out of their packaging and repackaged without any type of sanitary handling of it. The handling of the product was not sanitary at all and there was roaches on the floor and dust everywhere, cars were being parked in the garage. You know, there was nothing sanitary about any of it.

From the FTC complaints:

I received a box that looked like it had been tampered with and when I emailed them about it, they said that I am just 'claiming that'.

The 100+ complaints lodged with the FTC are likely only a small fraction of those actually displeased with the company and its no-refund policy. Its Terms and Conditions have probably deterred others from speaking out, what with the threat of being charged even more for a product that they don't want constantly hanging over their heads. With this in mind, it's tough to take any positive reviews of Roca Labs seriously. Instead, they take the appearance of gunpoint cheeriness, where "participants" have the "option" of vehemently praising the company or watching an additional $500-1000 disappear from their bank accounts.

Filed Under: complaints, free speech, ftc, non-disparagement, reviews, slapp, terms of service, threats
Companies: roca labs

Shady Customer Complaint Site Charges $10,900 For Attempted Removals Of Negative Reviews

from the taking-a-good-thing-and-making-it-horrible dept

Running a consumer complaint site has its problems. For one, unhappy companies and individuals will use a variety of methods to get negative reviews taken down, including bogus defamation and copyright claims. So, you safeguard against that by refusing to take reviews down for any reason. Companies will also make threats against reviewers, so you block that by taking that option away from reviewers.

But this all has to be enforced within the limitations of the law. Fortunately, Section 230 deflects a lot of this potential damage by shielding sites from being held liable for third-party content. It's not bulletproof, but it's a start. Of course, some complaint sites go overboard. RipoffReports has itself been criticized for leveraging these protective policies into a revenue stream by charging users high fees for complaint removals.

But not every complaint site exists to provide a valuable service to consumers. Some are just there to provide a soapbox for anyone unhappy about anything. There's no focus, no attempt to vet reviews or reviewers and nothing indicating there's any real oversight of the platform.

ComplaintsBureau is one of the latter. Here's the "review" that was sitting at the top of the page when I visited it on Jan. 25th.

OCTAVIAN P. OF CHICAGO, IL -WEST SIDE IS KNOWINGLY SPREADING STD(S) AND SLEEPING AROUND.

Classy.

Others are run-of-the-mill complaints about bad businesses, bad tenants and other unsatisfactory entities. But it's ComplaintsBureau's actions in retaliation for takedown attempts that really sets it apart from the Yelps of the internet. Adam Steinbaugh recently tweeted out the following link to a Better Business Bureau complaint about (sort of) ComplaintsBureau:

Complaint

Charged monthly membership - did not honor cancellation.

Experian online Credit( www.experien.com) offers a $1 Credit Report &Score. I did that & then same day cancelled my membership - Nine days later (two days after the free trial membership) they charged me a $19.95 monthly fee and when I called on 11/20/2014, they won't refund. With Only 2 days into what they are calling my membership month - and they wont even consider a partial refund. This is slimmy and false advertising...membership programs are such a scam!!!

Desired Settlement
$19.95

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Business Response
Hello

****** *********

Re: Case XXXXXXXX / **** *****

We have tried to go to the BBB site there is no where to post, the url you sent us for that complaint don't work.

This was clearly a false complaint by **** *****. **** ***** was billed for $10,900.00 USD for filing a false DMCA complaint, Complaints Bureau did file a DMCA counter-notification to have the complaint restored. Then Complaints Bureau has sent her bill to Experian on 10/16/2014 that was pass due

Peridocally, we recieve thousands of DMCA takedown requests. Because of people not liking what they read on the site, they attempt less-than-effective ways of trying to get them removed. Many even try to simply file DMCA, without following through with the process. You must validate who you are and your exact information, if you want action to be taken, in your favor. Every piece of information- including photos, videos, text and everything else, is automatically copyrighted when it is submitted to complaints bureau and also becomes the property of complaints bureau, as per our Terms of Use. If you file a DMCA request, you must follow through completely to the very end of the process, otherwise, complaints bureau will file a counter notice to all major search engines and hosts, to have it restored. We will then bill you for $10,900.00. for these costs. Should you violate this clause, as determined by ComplaintsBureau.com in its sole discretion, you will be provided a seventy-two (72) hour opportunity to retract the DMCA request, in question. If the DMCA remains, in whole or in part, you will immediately be billed $10,900.00 USD for legal fees and court costs until such complete costs are determined in litigation. Should these charges remain unpaid for 30 calendar days from the billing date, your unpaid invoice will be sent to our collection agency and will be reported to all consumer credit reporting agencies until paid

The reponse has nothing to do with the complaint, but it appears ComplaintsBureau's owner -- Scott Breitenstein -- rejected a DMCA takedown notice and billed the sender $10,900, following it up by reporting this person to Experian. What it has to do with this particular complaint remains open for debate, but Breitenstein's standard MO prizes aggression over intelligence. The "response" quotes CB's policy in full, as noted under its "Non-Disparagement" heading on its "DMCA Procedures" page (for reasons only known to Breitenstein).

While it's good to know the site will stand up to bogus takedown requests ("If you would like to show up at a jurisdiction of Federal District Court , I would be more than happy to meet you in a courtroom, just bring a toothbrush for the prison sentence." [LOL]), its other practices are more questionable, including its legally-unsound issuance of a bill for $10,900 for rejected DMCA takedowns. This ridiculous amount -- coupled with reporting to credit agencies -- puts ComplaintsBureau in the same shady company with others who have inserted dubious non-disparagement clauses in their Terms of Service pages.

But that isn't the extent of the site (and site owner's) questionable behavior. Steinbaugh notes that a bogus review of him went up shortly after Breitenstein found out Steinbaugh planned to write about the ComplaintsBureau owner's foray into the revenge porn field. Under the infamous "STD Carriers" tag, there's a "review" that includes nude photos of a supposed "carrier." An angry email from the person "reviewed" demanding the removal of these photos was met with this response from Breitenstein:

Subject: DMCA-CASE#979968-Notice of unauthorized use of Rebekah Wells
From: "Scott Breitenstein" <legal@complaintsbureau.com>
Date: Tue, June 17, 2014 9:45 pm
To: womenagainstrevengeporn@gmail.com
Priority: Normal
Options:

As pertaining to your balls being bigger than mine, we can see that this is true, by looking at your photos!!! By the way, you didn't send an electronic signature with the proper DMCA notice.You also didn't include your home address, so we can file the proper paperwork, for submission. This makes this notice invalid. If you want to send it to the proper address, send it to : abuse@complaintsbureau.com.

Normally, all content is copyrighted, when submitted to complaints bureau. If you file a DMCA takedown, you need to follow through completely because complaints bureau will file a counter-claim to have it restored and you will be billed $10,900.00 for the costs. Once you file a DMCA, you have 10-14 days to file suit against complaints bureau. If you fail to file, within this time frame, the complaint will be restored, forever. You will be billed $10,900.00 for the costs. You then have 30 days to pay this. If you don't pay in this time frame, we will submit it to a collection agency, thereby affecting your credit. It will also be reported to all of the major credit bureaus.

We are not anything like other site's, that you have had complaints removed from. We are a real and genuine Complaints Bureau. We will not back down to idle threats and pressure to simply remove content. You also might want to consult an attorney, before you make a bad move. We will publish this email, under our legal threats section.

Site against woman whos against revenge porn

Go fuck yourself.

Polite as usual,
Dzianis Mohamed
Complaints Bureau

Note that the signature (Dzianis Mohamed) doesn't match the email header. Breitenstein appears to use multiple names in an attempt to portray his site as being more legitimate than it actually is -- i.e., an entity with several employees. The response posted to his own site doesn't even bother to strip the telltale email header.

The preemptive strike masquerading as a review of Adam Steinbaugh claimed (among other things) that he destroyed the apartment he was living in and had been arrested for molesting a minor. None of these things are true, but they live on at ComplaintsBureau, as related by the obviously fictional landlord "Sharon Eakins." Steinbaugh noted the oddly coincidental timing of one of his tweets and this review's appearance in his response to the bogus review.

Third, a mere three days before this was posted, I posted Mr. Breitenstein's photo on my Twitter feed and noted that I was going to be writing about this site, because Mr. Breitenstein had the classy idea of running a revenge porn forum here.

It would be the next logical step for the "STD Carriers" tag, considering most of them feature links to ShesAHomewrecker.com, a site bordering on revenge porn, but lacking the volume of explicit photos needed to push it firmly into that territory. It's a "revenge" site alright, but the "porn" part is very limited.

The site's confrontational tone has mistaken "being an aggro asshole" for "protecting consumers' rights." The STD section serves no purpose other than to give some people an excuse to drag others' names through the mud (with pictures). Sure, Section 230 protects ComplaintsBureau, but it won't do much for those posting defamatory reviews on Breitenstein's site.

Between the fake rep names, the fake reviews, the revenge porn-esque "STD Carrier" tag and its own bogus legal threats/defenses (see also: the Dayton, OH-located Breitenstein pretending to be a French company in response to a takedown request), ComplaintsBureau is a disaster masquerading as a consumer's champion. There's a lot of shadiness here, including its $10,900 non-disparagement fee that has very little to do with disparagement and everything to do with heading off people who might have legitimate removal requests. To top things off, ComplaintsBureau claims to be owned by "Vestron Video Media," a defunct home video distributor that ceased operations more than 20 years ago. (Meanwhile, its site registration data lists a company called "The Council of Complaints Bureau, Inc." as the Admin Organization.)

ComplaintsBureau loves complaining customers (and jilted exes) but doesn't care much for people drawing attention to the terrible tactics it deploys. A legitimate consumer complaints site doesn't need bogus fines and expletive-filled letters to protect its content from outside interference. ComplaintsBureau is all noise and no substance, and of use to only Scott Breitenstein.

Filed Under: cda 240, complaints, credit report, defamation, dmca, safe harbors, secondary liability, takedowns
Companies: complaintsbureau

Kansas Legislative Committee Pushes Bill That Would Make It A Felony To File False Complaints Against A Police Officer

from the a-short-bill,-broken-all-over dept

How can you tell if an introduced bill is a bad piece of legislation? Well, there are several indicators to look for -- overly broad language, written as a reaction to a recent tragedy -- but when a bill is referred to as the "retaliation bill" by a large majority of the press, the problems are right there on the surface. (h/t to Techdirt reader Rekrul)

The Kansas legislature's Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice recently introduced a bill with some very chilling implications for citizens.

The bill, titled "filing false complaints against a law enforcement officer," was introduced in February by the Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice and moved quickly to the Taxation Committee before ending March 13 in the Committee for Transportation and Public Safety Budget. In its one-hour Tuesday hearing, according to the legislative research department, only one person spoke in favor of the bill while eight others, including legislators and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, spoke against it…

According to the bill, a complaint over a law enforcement officer that a department finds to be false "shall be closed immediately and the law enforcement agency shall seek criminal prosecution against the complaint for perjury." All complaints would be submitted with a signed affidavit that included the time, date, place and nature of the offense. Current law requires that law enforcement departments review all complaints, whether anonymous or signed.

This bill, currently stalled, would make it a felony to file a false complaint against a police officer, something that used to be handled via civil litigation. And there would be no option for filing anonymous complaints, which would further discourage the reporting of alleged police misconduct.

In addition, officers would be allowed to view the complaint and any related evidence before making a statement, giving accused officers a chance to craft narratives before issuing statements that might be contradicted by the evidence submitted. The complaint's lack of anonymity would give accused officers the name, address, phone number, etc. of their accuser, something that could easily lead to harassment. (Of course, law enforcement agencies could strip this information before presenting it to the accused officer [the bill contains no stipulation to do so], but how many here believe that would actually happen -- or that the information couldn't be accessed otherwise?)

Also problematic is the fact that the bill stipulates that "no other law enforcement agency" can open an investigation on a complaint if another agency has performed an investigation and found no evidence of wrongdoing. This would keep all investigations "in-house," which greatly contributes to the likelihood that complaints will be found false (and subsequently, result in felony charges against the filer). This would prevent agencies like the FBI and DOJ from investigating closed complaints to see if anything was missed or covered up. This stipulation would further insulate police from accountability.

The bill is so bad even the attorney for the local police union (the entity that usually works hard to restore bad cops to their former positions) found the wording somewhat problematic.

The one person who testified in favor of the bill Tuesday was Sean McCauley, an attorney for the Kansas chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police and the Kansas State Troopers Association. While he had reservations about allowing departments to pursue charges for unfounded or minor allegations, local FOP President Sgt. Tyson Meyers did see some value in the bill.

"I'd like to protect officers against false allegations," he said, stating officers can be subject to administrative leave following a complaint or suffer from a tarnished reputation even if the allegation is proved to be false.

"At the same time, we should police our own and have the integrity to monitor our department."

He also added that it was a bad idea to limit complaint investigations to one department, noting that previous investigations by outside agencies had led to the rooting out of bad cops who otherwise would have gone unpunished.

As it stands now, the bill is effectively dead. The coverage of the bill has been universally negative, and after its nearly one-sided showing during its floor appearance, no further discussions on the bill have been scheduled. The question remains as to why such a bill, loaded with negative side effects for the public, was ever introduced, as well as who exactly is behind it. The committee page lists several names, but the bill's sponsor is the committee itself, rather than a certain legislator. Safety in numbers applies to bad legislation, it seems. The bill seeks to out anonymous complainants, but has been shepherded into the public forum by no one in particular.

Filed Under: complaints, felony, kansas, law enforcement, police, police abuse

FBI Director Uses Appearance At International Police Convention To Complain About FBI Budget Cuts

from the mind-on-his-money-and-his-money-on-his-mind dept

The currently ongoing International Association of Chiefs of Police has, so far, seen law enforcement officials exhibit a new found wariness of rolling out invasive surveillance technology in the wake of the NSA leaks. This sort of caution and concern has sadly been missing up until now. The generally accepted practice has been to roll out surveillance programs quickly, with little in the way of oversight or privacy protections, and deal with the fallout later.

As I expressed in the previous post, I was concerned if this would change following appearances by James Comey, the new director of the FBI, and Attorney General Eric Holder, neither of which have a history of prioritizing Americans' civil liberties.

Comey has made his appearance, but rather than attempt to "calm" the suddenly rational voices of law enforcement, he took this opportunity to complain about the FBI's budget woes, something he's done pretty much nonstop since he took the position.

At a time when FBI agents play a larger role than ever fighting violent crime and terrorism, they are facing potentially devastating cuts because of congressional budget slashing.

“I’m required to cut 3,500 positions, to cut my operations to the bone, to do things like ration gas money and to stare at the prospect of sending my folks home for an extended period,” FBI Director James Comey said.

This CBS report claims this is the "first time" Comey's spoken publicly about the FBI's money problem, but Reuters quotes him as speaking to "major news outlets" about the same issue back in September, shortly after he took office.

The FBI during Mueller's final year made its budget by "looking through the couch cushions," Comey said. With a new government fiscal year set to begin October 1 and Congress not close to passing a budget, "the couch has been turned upside-down," he said...

Comey said he was considering a furlough of 10 days or more for each of the FBI's 36,000 employees. New agent classes at a bureau compound in Quantico, Virginia, stopped within the past few months, he said.

"I'm happy to have a discussion with anyone who thinks I have too many people or too many resources," Comey said.

Great! Let's have that discussion.

The FBI, unlike many, many other government agencies (including the DOJ, which oversees it), has had very few budget fiascoes. But this lack of headline-grabbing waste scandals does not mean the FBI is necessarily running a tight ship. Comey claims a loss of projected cut of $800 million (from a budget of $8.1 billion) will result in the slashing of 3,600 jobs. Before he gets to the point of handing out pink slips, he may want to take a look at some areas where money's being wasted.

The DOJ has plenty of questionable expenditures, including the overuse of private jets and a love for expensive conferences, both of which resulted in $61 million of arguably wasted funds. As the FBI is a department of the DOJ, it would probably benefit from some belt-tightening further up the ladder.

The FBI, like millions of people around the world, is easily flattered. For no apparent reason other than the possibility of rubbing elbows with stars, the FBI funds a "Hollywood division" that provides consultation and free use of FBI facilities to TV and movie producers. This $1.5 million expenditure isn't much more than a couple of atoms of the drop in the bucket, considering the agency's $8 billion budget, but it seems to be set up in the most ingratiatingly backwards way. Shouldn't studios be paying the FBI for its expertise and facilities, rather than allowing taxpayers to pick up the tab? Just something to consider, Comey.

After Comey's first statements on the agency's budget woes, the ACLU made some suggestions of its own. Why not eliminate some programs that rank high on the busywork scale but low on actual results? Bonus: fewer civil liberties violations and their attendant lawsuits. In addition to the questionable profiling performed under its "Domain Management" programs, there's plenty of waste to be found in other intelligence gathering/investigative programs.

Modifications to guidelines governing the FBI's domestic operations in 2008 gave it the leeway to perform "assessment," i.e. intrusive investigations targeted at persons without any suspicion of illegal activity or threats to national security.

In the two years from March of 2009 to March 2011, the FBI opened more than 82,000 of these assessments of people and groups without a factual basis to suspect wrongdoing. Only 3,315 of these assessments found information sufficient to justify further investigation.

Not only was the hit rate insignificant (and hardly enough to justify the opening of 82,000 assessments), but the FBI is still holding onto the data collected on the 78,000 targets it was unable to find any reason to continue investigating.

The Suspicious Activity Reporting program is also a failure, although the FBI notes that the thousands of "tips" it receives a year justify continued funding. (It glosses over the fact that the SAR system is nearly as worthless as its "assessments.")

The ACLU of Northern California recently obtained hundreds of SARs from California, including many that were entered into eGuardian, which clearly show people are targeted based on racial and religious characteristics and First Amendment-protected activity like photography. The Government Accountability Office criticized the federal government's SAR programs for failing to establish metrics to determine whether they actually improve security. Any program that violates rights and doesn't improve security should be closed immediately.

On top of that, there's the Fusion Centers the FBI works with. Although these are technically a DHS line item, any money being spent collaborating with (or withholding information from[?]) entities a Congressional investigation called "wasteful," "useless" and "possibly fraudulent" is money better spent elsewhere.

So, there's some more areas where money could be saved, or at the very least, diverted to investigative activities with better success rates (and, of course, fewer instances of civil liberties violations).

But even without cutting back a single program, there's something to be said for cutting staff. While unpleasant for those on the receiving end of pink slips, the fact is that the FBI's budget has more than doubled since 2001 ($3.2 billion to $8.1 billion). It has also added nearly 7,000 positions over that same period. The FBI goes on at length about its counterterrorism work but there's little hard evidence to support the theory that the terrorist threat has expanded at the same rate as its budget. But this discrepancy between budget and staff indicates the issue isn't too many employees.

When Comey talks about cutting staff, he's not looking at the real problem. An agency that's ballooned to twice its size budget-wise in 12 years without coming anywhere close to doubling its staff is likely sitting on a ton of redundant systems and inefficient processes. If the agency was truly stretched, it would be adding more agents rather than more initiatives and sketchy surveillance programs.

Let's not forget that the agency has twice blown a significant amount of money on updating its computer system. It gave $600 million to SAIC (the contractors behind Oakland's new Orwellian surveillance system), which managed to cobble together a spectacular failure over a five-year period, one so terrible it was scrapped immediately. The job was handed off to a new contractor and given a $400 million budget and a four-year window back in 2006. That system finally went fully live in August of 2012.

This is the FBI director's response to a 10% budget cut. He makes it sound as though the agency will fade quietly out of existence unless given more money than it was given the year before, and he obviously expects this to continue in perpetuity. If he believes a $800 million haircut (relatively-speaking) will make the agency resort to "looking through the couch cushions" in order to fund its work, then it's hardly a surprise it's asking for $270,000 to fulfill an FOIA request. Hard times mean looking for new revenue streams.

Filed Under: budget cuts, complaints, doj, fbi, james comey