Can I get sued for this?

[Andy$$$]

Hi Guys/Gals,

I need a bit advice here.

I have a website and on the websites there is different zones. Adult and Non Adult etc.

By accident a non adult banner was added into the adult section and when the advertising company who has the banners notified me about it I immediately removed the advertising companies code so no non adult banners was shown in that wrong section of the site and apologized (didn't even take 15 minutes after I got the email) and told them it was an human error and not intentional.

They had received the complaint from one of their advertisers and where forced to terminate my account and keep my earnings. I think it was a bit harsh but since I did do the mistake I accepted it.

I thought it was over but the day after the complaining advertiser contacted me directly and now they wanted a lot of info like telling them that I have removed their banner and that it will never happen again, how many banner impressions was shown etc etc + my full name, address, phone number etc. I replied with everything except my private contact info I also told them that I was sorry and that it was a mistake and not intentional and then apologized deeply one extra time and was hoping this was now over.

Wrong of me the next thing that happened was the registrar contacting me and wanted me to CC them all correspondence between me and the complaining advertiser and if not they would reveal my private info to the advertiser. I once again sent the same info over the the complaining advertiser with a CC to the registrar. Then I emailed the registrar and asked if everything was ok now and they replied that it was.

Wrong of me, again. Hours later the complainer contacted me again and asked for my info and I once again replied that I was sorry and wondered why they wanted that info since I don't like to give it out to anyone & everybody.

I didn't get any reply instead I got today a new email from the registrar telling me to give the advertiser my full info or they would.

Why do they want my info, planning to sue me perhaps? Can they really do that when their banner was added by mistake?

I live outside USA in an European country.

I hope someone here can give me some advice.

Thanks in advanced.

Andy

[Acro]

Let me guess, that was GoDaddy?

BTW, since you live in Sweden you have little to worry about.

[jberryhill]

Let me guess, that was GoDaddy?

Going for the easy ones today, I see.

[Andy$$$]

Yeah, Go daddy.

But will an American company really sue someone out side USA over a misplaced banner and expect to win? Or this is to "set and example" or something?

Well since this is the first time someone has contacted about something like this I do worry a bit.

[DomainsInc]

Sounds like harrassment.

[Acro]

They can get your info from the registrar for whatever lawful purpose; you have the right to not surrender your info voluntarily. Unless the adult section where the ad appeared depicted something extreme or unlawful (such as drunk, nude domainers registering .mobi's) I doubt they'd try to press charges across the pond.

[domaingenius]

You have though got to be aware of the criminal laws in USA whereby displaying porn on
a website that is intended for use by children is an offence. You know how easily the Americans seem to extradite people, since they own and the rule the World.

DG

[gorlov]

Originally Posted by domaingenius

You have though got to be aware of the criminal laws in USA whereby displaying porn on
a website that is intended for use by children is an offence. You know how easily the Americans seem to extradite people, since they own and the rule the World.

DG

They can't extradite people from Sweden. Especially not Swedish citizens.
If it was a U.S. citizen wanted for a very serious crime, then maybe, but not if facing capital punishment. Then the crime would instead be handled by a Swedish court, ans sentence served here.
But not for this kind of thing.

[Andy$$$]

domaingenius: its the other way around. Their NON ADULT banner was accidentally shown in the SOME NUDITY ADULT area of my site.

Acroplex: It wasn't any extreme porn. The screen shot they sent me was of a beautiful girl that had a bikini on her.

So Godaddy just reveals any info to anyone who asks for it? So much for paying for their protected whois service.

[jberryhill]

So Godaddy just reveals any info to anyone who asks for it?

Pretty much, yes.... and they'll tack on a service charge to you.

The thing I don't understand is that since the advertiser had contracted with the banner rotating folks, and they in turn contracted with you, your information should be available through that channel anyway.

[Andy$$$]

John: yeah, it would. Perhaps the advertiser is trying to scare me and then ask me to settle out side court or something? is that common?

[Domagon]

You might as well send them the info because GoDaddy likely will eventually, and as John mentioned, will charge you a fee!

Chalk it up as a learning experience - host adult and non-adult on separate servers each with its own advertising account / ad database.

When dealing with big business, it's very difficult to simply not give personal info out. A work-around is to register a company, and assign an agent to accept correspondence. That way when one asks, they get info, but it's not your private info. To do this right costs money though, and nothing is 100%...

Bottom line is one can't depend on domain privacy services, which in my view are often way overpriced, for true privacy - most will give it out under numerous circumstances, and often without a court order.

Ron

[chrisb72]

Why not do like the people on Ebay do when they bid on something they changed their mind on 20 min later and say, "Yea I put a lowly employee in charge of putting up the banners and he fu**ed it all up so now I fired his ***. Sorry about that. Wont happen again."

[DDC_Cyn]

This whole thing sounds insane. I can see if a hardcore banner showed up on a Disney site or something but a non-adult shows on adult. Hey, people who visit adult sites buy stuff too - they might have got a customer out of it.

Sounds to me like there's something bigger going on here. It's just too much effort for such a small deal.

[Andy$$$]

English isn't my main language so after carefully reading the correspondence once again I now found out that in fact a publisher of the advertising networked I used placed a banner in the advertising network that linked to a website that had unauthorized advertisment of the complainers client.

So the banner and the website was created by someone else that didn't have authorization.

Can they really go after me for this? I mean even if the banner had been in the correct zone on my website it would still been unauthorized to show it but since I use an advertising network I can't control which banners they show or not. At least not when I have no idea that the banner was unauthorized in the first place.

Damn this is getting complicated. I hope you guys understood what I wrote above and can advice

Andy

[flamewalker]

So, as an example:

You have Google ads. Someone put an ad on Google that showed up on your site. The Site that put up the ad had an ad on THEIR site that violated someone elses rights?

If thats the case then they need to go after the site that was showing the 'unauthorized' ad since you don't control the ads Google (in the example) displays.

[Andy$$$]

flamewalker: That is exactly the scenario here except that the code from the advertising firm was accidentally added in the wrong zone of my website.

The advertising firm should be the one that has to check if an advertiser are using advertisement that they have the right to use right? not me!

I did some Google'ing and found out that the advertiser that had the banners was involved with several lawsuits already for doing false advertising and so on.

[fab]

Just an odd couple of guesses.
1. Maybe they are getting harassed, and trying to use you as escape goat,
2. Maybe they think you were involved in this, i.e., you were working with the real offender

I would try asking them a straight forward question.
Have I (i.e., you) done anything wrong?

[flamewalker]

I don't see how you are at fault for anything other than adding the ad to the wrong zone on your site and even that is not illegal since it wasn't an adult ad on non-adult content.

Simply tell them that you are a 3rd party to the advertising firm and they need to contact them if they have any problems. You have done nothing wrong except a misplacement of the ad which was rectified immediately. You have no control over the ad content or the posting of the ad by the advertiser.

If they continue to harass you, then demand that they cease the harassment or provide specific details of what information they need and why, and if needed for lawful use (ie an investigation into the advertiser), then consider providing the information (not giving out ip addresses or anything personally identifiable etc), or stop responding altogether until/unless you get a subpoena.

[HuntingMoon]

it seems like an easily resolved situation and just some fake threats. one thing though- we market in adult and nonadult & we have run into instances where our nonadult ad was cached on an adult community. we had beef with a client because they googled the nonadult site and the adult link was in the first page. long story short, it was a hassle and we are extra cautious now.