NEWS Earlier this week, silicon.com exposed a website, carorcar.com, that was ripping off the design, content and intellectual property of other websites in order to sell advertising.
We reported the frustrations of Shane O'Donoghue, who had seen his site mirrored by the website thieves and expressed anger at the fact that the rival site was using his hard work to earn money he could have been making from his own ad sales.
But no more. We contacted the owners of Webclients - which runs the website of Refinance-now.org, which was advertising on the offending site - and informed them of the illegality of the site on which they were advertising.
In response to that news, Webclients has agreed to withhold all payment from carorcar.com.
As the sole advertiser on the site, that retraction of funds will hopefully cut off these illegal activities at their source.
O'Donoghue told silicon.com: "I'm delighted progress has been made and it has been possible to stop the activities of this company."
"I think it's important that this issue has been brought to the attention of the IT community and hopefully anybody tempted to steal other people's websites will now know they are being watched," he added.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Way to go Silicon! Its about time someone cut the legs off the losers that do this kind of stuff. Maybe now these criminals will go get a job! Ya think?
2. Allan Shriver
Well done Silicon.com! More! So glad to see that some people in positions of responsibility (unlike most politicians) have the 'spherical objects' to ACT on behalf of their reader-customers - unlike the spineless ISPs who could, but don't. Keep leading the way, Silicon.com. And - if you can - please encourage your publishing compatriots to do likewise. We love investigative, campaigning, ACTIVE journalism! More power to your keyboards!
3. Jeff
After last week's story I think I was the only person to suggest the best way of sorting this out was to hit them in the pocket by gettinbg their ads removed, so it would have been nice if Silicon.com had acknowledged that the action they took was as a result of a reader's suggestion.
But well done Silicon for doing something about it.
(Ed note. Thanks for the feedback Jeff, but sadly it wasn't down to you - we had already contcated Webclients before publishing the original story. We'd love to give you credit - but as such we can't.)
But it doesn't need a complaint from the likes of Silicon to get advertisers to stop doing business with dishonest sites. Most online advertising networks will take action against any site that breaks their rules.
4. Thomas OZENNE
making a commercial site is not easy,I am not a business man but how many products exist in the world , how many non repetitive store would that mean? Would you mind if someone sells the same good accross the seas?
Being a retailler ...