eBay Sues Alleged 'Cookie Stuffers' Quote:
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Three men defrauded eBay in a "cookie stuffing" scheme that made it appear the men's companies should be paid commissions, eBay claims in Federal Court. It sued Shawn Hogan and Digital Point Solutions, Todd Dunning and Kessler's Flying Circus, and Brian Dunning and Thunderwood Holdings.
eBay says the men devised software programs that, "unbeknownst to the [computer] user, redirected the user's computer to the eBay Web site without the user actually clicking on an eBay advertisement link, or even becoming aware that they had left the page they were previously viewing. As a result, the eBay site would be prompted to drop an eBay cookie on the user's computer even though the user never clicked on an eBay advertisement or even realized that their computer had ever visited the eBay site."
The complaint continues: "once the cookie was stuffed on the user's computer by one or more of the defendant's any future revenue actions initiated by that user when the user later visited eBay intentionally, and not as a result of any advertisement places by defendants, appeared to be eligible for commissions payable to one of the defendants".
eBay claims the defendants also used deceptive means to prevent it from discovering the fraud, and to conceal it. eBay demands compensatory, treble and punitive damages. It is represented by David Eberhart with O'Melveny & Myers.
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You can view the court document
here.
The defendants are being charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
On
DigitalPoint, the forum owned by the defendant, a user posted the following:
Quote:
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Under RICO, a person who is a member of an enterprise that has committed any two of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering. Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and/or sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity." RICO also permits a private individual harmed by the actions of such an enterprise to file a civil suit; if successful, the individual can collect treble damages.
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After my own investigation, I posted the following on the DigitalPoint Forums:
Quote:
This is verified. Digital Point Solutions and its owner is being sued.
This isn't the first time though - we've seen multiple cases with Digital Point Solutions as the defendants. The company is basically a front for them to receive money for illegal activity like what was said in the first post.
Everyone who visits this forum has been robbed in one way or another by the owners. It's not debatable.
I expect this forum to be gone in the near future. It can't possible keep running much longer.
Click fraud, cookie stuffing, and everything else of that nature is not only illegal, but it's wrong. I advertise my site, much like many of you - and if people were cheating me out of money, I would be angry.
This IS NOT a case of a large company just coming in and stomping on the little guys. Shawn has committed illegal and immoral acts and should be punished accordingly. EBay should sue for everything he has.
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Minutes later, I was permanently banned. The moderators gave me the following reason:
Quote:
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To prevent you from being robbed. xD
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Soon thereafter, members started to question why I was banned immediately after posting on the subject. Eventually, a very heated situation broke out. DigitalPoint Staff proceeded to ban multiple members - anyone questioning why members such as myself were banned or anyone who posted information relevant to case.
After being extremely immature, the staff members at DigitalPoint proceeded to distribute a massive amount of negative reputation to members, and continued to place permanent bans on many others.
Later into the discussion, a moderator gave the following reason for the banning:
Quote:
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Attacks on members or their businesses are not allowed.
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Thereafter, a member posted this:
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I dont think it was an attack on any member. One has to stretch it to get that.
Here is an interesting quote I found fom an interview with Shawn a while back
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Its mostly just wanting giving users freedom to say whatever they want. Having a forum where people can't speak their minds (even if it goes against what the moderators/admins think) is rather pointless, because you might as well just have a conversation with yourself.
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It seems as though Shawn is contradicting himself.
Throughout the thead more information and evidence is posted, and more arugments break out.
All-in-all, this is one of the most atrocious cases of surpression I've seen online. Anyone who posted their thoughts or ideas, or even valid evidence, was soon after unable to post anything at all. Numerous posts were also edited to change the intended message of the original poster.
I will post more information as it becomes available.
#1
08-29-08, 07:44 PM
eBay Sues Alleged Cookie Stuffers 
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