Women get justice on "revenge porn" site operator
The operator of a so-called "revenge porn" website that posted illegally obtained nude photos and videos of more than 1,000 women must now clean up his act. Craig Brittain, who ran a site called isanybodydown.com, has been banned from publicly sharing such images and must destroy the ones he collected, the Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday.
Brittain agreed to the terms under a settlement with the FTC. He was charged with deception in getting the images without permission and then creating other websites to extract payments from women who asked to have their photos removed.
"This behavior is not only illegal but reprehensible," Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. As "a result of this settlement, the illegally collected images and information will be deleted, and this individual can never return to the so-called 'revenge porn' business."
The site was largely set up for men to send in pictures and videos of former girlfriends in compromising situations. In addition to just collecting and posting the photos, the FTC said Brittain required submitters to provide detailed information about those in the images, including their Facebook profile, their full names, phone numbers and where they lived.
Brittain marketed his site as being raunchier than others. He posted the images organized by the state where the woman lived and then encouraged nasty commentary about them to be posted along with the pictures.
Some women complained to Brittain to get the images deleted, noting that their reputations or careers were on the line and that they were hearing from strangers who had seen them. He largely did not respond to those complaints, the FTC said.
However, on Brittain's site were ads for what appeared to be third-party services called "Takedown Hammer" and "Takedown Lawyer." They charged $200 to $500 with the promise of getting images removed from the site. However, Brittain operated of both of those services also, the FTC said.
Brittain's actions, the FTC said, violated a federal law that protects consumers from "deceptive acts and practices."
