My content has been stolen

Where do I start

[wrkalot]

I just discovered a web site that has copied all of my content... images, copy, etc.. They even show my logo for one of the products instead of the item image!

The site was started last Oct, private whois, hosted in malaysia... where do I start in getting this thing shut down AND what can be done, if anything, to keep it from happening again? Help!

[Corey Bryant]

Did you email the webhosting provider / data center to see if they will shut down the account?

[wrkalot]

Thanks for the reply Corey. I'm going to do that now. Interesting, that site won't load this morning.

[wrkalot]

One more thing. I'm sure that this site is a scam. They only except money order as payment and have a $600 minimum order. They used my sale prices as the list and took 45% off as their sale price. This puts every item well below cost. I have contacted some of my suppliers and they have never heard of this site and say they are not, nor ever have been, dealers of theirs. They do have a geotrust cert but I'm guessing that pretty easy to get?

Is there a place that it can be reported as a fraudulent site?

[axeray]

I haven't heard of such a place but I'm sure they're out there.

[Corey Bryant]

Yes, it is very easy to get a Geotrust cert - the times I have bought a Geotrust cert in the past, no verification was ever done on the business (to see if it was legit, etc).

As far as reporting it, usually there is not anything you can do, but hopefully people are savvy enough to re-think ordering from them since it is only money order.

[Lorel]

Before you invest a lot of money trying to get that site taken down search for your keywords and see if they are outranking you anywhere. It may be that Google already recognizes them as a scraper and won't allow them to rank at all. And besides--it's often hard to get a host in another country to take action. Most hosts require you to file a DMCA report now and they may not respond to that either if the scaper refutes the DMCA.

[wrkalot]

Thank you for all of the reply's. Their sites look to be shut down now.