FC: Russian mail-order bride webmistress asks Politech for help

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

I just got a phone call from Elena to follow up on her email message. As 
far as I can tell, the story goes like this:

Elena runs a mail-order Russian bride web site based in Australia. A 
popular Australian TV program used screen snapshots from her web site to 
illustrate a program about immigration scams 
(http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/images/story_pics/2003_05_11/russian_115.jpg). 
Elena says this is unfair, that her business is above-board, and has sued 
the TV network. She also set up a protest site, mediadefamation.org, and it 
apparently been taken offline by its U.S.-based hosting service, 
webmasters.com. Elena believes the apparent removal was due to pressure 
from the Australian network, Channel 9.

That's all I know. She's asking Politech members for suggestions.

-Declan

---

From: "Elena's Models" <elena@elenasmodels.com>
To: <declan@well.com>
Subject: Website is shut down by webmasters.com
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:54:16 +1000
MIME-Version: 1.0
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X-Priority: 1
X-MSMail-Priority: High

Dear Declan,

I have found a reference to your website in Google's groups. They said you 
stand for people whose right to free speech was suppressed.

I have just found out that my website of 10 days, 
<http://www.mediadefamation.org>www.mediadefamation.org was shut down by 
webmasters.com where I have chosen to host it. The website was about a top 
rating TV program and how they used the pages of my websites in their 
program about scams and refused to apologize.

This morning (I am in Australia, now it's night) it was still online.
Now, it is offline as for about 3-4 hours, at least.

The press release on our story was checked and distributed by 
eworldwire.com 
<http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/view_release.php?id=1484>http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/view_release.php?id=1484

The website that was shut down was basically an elaborated copy of the 
press release.
You can find cashed pages of the website on Google by searching for Media 
Defamation .ORG

A similar case, by the same TV company can be found at
<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/20/1040174391898.html>http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/20/1040174391898.html

Here they also used footages of innocent people and then refused to cancel 
the broadcast (the bride phoned them after she had seen the promo but 
before the actual broadcast) and then refused to broadcast an apology. That 
time it cost them $1.6 mln.

But she was a celebrity.
I am not!!! :-)))

But I feel this practice of Channel Nine Australia should be stopped.
Any person is at risk if they started to download photos of innocent people 
from the Internet and use them and the pages of legitimate websites in 
their broadcast about scams.

I hope you will be able to give me an advice and probably support.

If you are aware of a place where I can host the site without being worried 
they will shut it down again because of complaints of this multimillion 
dollar corporation, please let me know.

Sincerely

Elena Petrova
Elena's Models
<http://www.elenasmodels.com>http://www.elenasmodels.com




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