This post was originally published on Friday. Since then we have been in contact with SBN and believe that they are, truly concerned with the privacy of their readers, and take their policy seriously. As they investigate what happened from their side, we re-publish the post with minor changes, lest the blogosphere believe we are backing away from any claim herein, which we certainly are not.
Comrades, as you know, the WLA is a blog of the people, dedicated to protecting you and your families from the tyranny of large, faceless corporations who care little for you other than what you can produce, or what your demographic can produce for them in advertisement revenue. We are saddened to report that certain blogs will go as far in games of petty retribution as to attempt to literally ruin your life.
Comrades, this is not rhetoric – we, at the WLA, have concrete evidence of representatives of The Buckeye Battle Cry willfully ignoring their published Privacy Policy to collect information on their readership for the express purpose of having a reader punished, and potentially fired, from their work.
How is this? It started some time ago when a writer of this blog posted a comment on a post at Buckeye Battle Cry. That blog, as is their unstated policy, deleted the post and banned the user, as the commenter had previously expressed an affinity for the University of Michigan in previous posts. The post was simple, and not very insulting:
Right, that’s Kevin from The Office. There was no text. No comment. Just this picture. Kevin’s not very intelligent, you see. The commenter was implying that the BBC’s post wasn’t very intelligent. This happened weeks ago, and he hasn’t commented since. That’s not very nice, we suppose, but it’s par for the course on the internet. It’s also fucking funny. Herp. Derp.
The BBC, however, was not content with deleting the comment and leaving the commenter banned. No, they investigated the IP address of the commenter, who posted his comment from his work computer, and e-mailed his employer’s IT department, complaining that an employee of their’s had posted “offensive content” on their blog. How do we know this? Recently, an anonymous poster to our Uniscorn comment section, hailing from an IP sourced to Canton, OH, pasted the following e-mail into our user chat:
Dear Jeff,
My name is <Name> and I am the <Title> for <Company>. I received a notification that one of our employees may have posted offensive material to your website. I have also received the IP addresses you sent along.
Would it be possible for you to provide more detail with regards to the particular blog entries in question, such as what sites are involved? Is there guidance you can provide that would take me directly to any particular posts that you would like to point out as examples of the behavior in question?
Thank you in advance for any more information you might be able to provide me. I will investigate this matter further once I receive more specifics.
Regards,
<Name>
<Title>
<Company>
Name, title and company have been redacted to protect the innocent. Even without a privacy policy, we adhere to common decency, unless you’re a spineless cockbag, which brings us to “Jeff.” “Jeff”, of course, would be Jeff Seemann, the most frequent poster at The Buckeye Battle Cry. The email was pasted to Uniscorn in response to the commenter referring to “Jeff” as “Jeff Semen”, when the IP address in question, handled “The BBC” came on to gloat after Michigan’s gut-punch loss in the Big 10 tourney to OSU. We’re going to carry on that tradition here, because Jeff has earned it.
So what do we know from Jeff Semen’s email? Not much, aside from the fact that he was offended by a comment from a rival fan on his little corner of the Internet and provided an IP address of the computer from which the comment originated to a third party unaffiliated with the BBC. The problem with this, of course, is that SBN, and thus the BBC tells you that this precise sort of thing WILL NOT HAPPEN:
… we will never share your Usage Data, Personal Information, Non-Personal Information, or Shared Information (which we will refer to in this Privacy Policy collectively as “User Information”) with any third party without your permission.
It can be presumed that Jeff Semen and the BBC are obligated, likely by contract, to adhere to SBN’s Privacy Policy. It is, after all, linked at the bottom of the BBC site. SBN’s Privacy Policy can be found in full here http://www.sbnation.com/guide/privacy, but it can be summarized as follows:
SBN automatically collects information it calls Usage Data “each time you visit the Sites” (see § 1 – “Information We Automatically Collect”). The Policy specifically states that an “IP address” is an example of Usage Data (see § 1) as distinct from other forms of data, such as user-submitted data (see e.g., § 2 – “Information You Choose to Submit”).
SBN then details its sharing practices (see § 3 – “Our Information Sharing Practices”), beginning with the above-quoted general policy. Various exceptions are enumerated (see §§ 3(b)-(e)), including third party advertisers, third party recipients of aggregated data, third party services providers, and various other scenarios such as legal actions, law enforcement activities, illegal activity, infrastructure protection, affiliated organizations, and mergers or acquisitions. For most of the exceptions, the Privacy Policy states that the information is not provided in a manner that would enable the third party to personally identify the user and/or requires the recipient to adhere to the Privacy Policy.
None of the exceptions were applicable in this case. The user may identify any of the defined information as public, which may then be used publicly (see § 4 – “Public Information”), but needless to say, our colleague did not consent to be dimed out to his employer.
Indeed, the Privacy Policy specifically states that SBN strives to protect User Information from misuse and unauthorized disclosure (see § 7 – “Security”). Yet Jeff Semen provided the IP address purely to harass and retaliate in response to a comment from a rival fan. Although SBN acknowledges that security is not 100%, surely visitors to its Sites can expect that those authorized to access Usage Data, such as an IP address, would not misuse and disclose that information without authorization, particularly in gross violation of its stated and agreed-upon Privacy Policy. Then again, maybe the BBC’s visitors can’t rely on promises SBN is making on their behalf.
The college sports blogosphere, and the blogosphere in general, really, is supported by millions of people who, largely, are seeking a diversion for a few minutes from the drudgery of their jobs. Many of the page views to any blog come, I’m sure, from a company computer. BBC, and, consequently, have demonstrated a willingness to flaunt their policies for the sole express purpose of ruining the life of a reader merely because he did not share the rooting interest of the blog in question. Doubtlessly, this puts every reader they have at risk – the sites collect IP addresses, and are clearly not afraid to use them.
So what do we have here? We have BBC writer, trolling a rival blog, so offended by someone mis-spelling his last name that he went back, scoured the logs of his Blog, and uncovered the person’s IP address for the express purpose of retribution, because he couldn’t handle being called a name.
Tread carefully, Comrades, as you venture onto an “enemy” blog - don’t express a word of dissent on any blog – you could be trying to support your wife and children on unemployment checks by the end of the week.
Large swaths of this were written by resident Law-talker CPS.
I’m having trouble finding a contact email for you guys. Would one of you mind emailing me? (peterbean-at-[gmail]-dot-com)
As a representative of SBN, I want to talk to y’all personally to understand exactly what happened, and take appropriate action.
Thanks in advance.
FML,
PB
I’m having trouble finding a contact email for you guys. Would one of you mind emailing me? (peterbean-at-[gmail]-dot-com)
As a representative of SBN, I want to talk to y’all personally to understand exactly what happened, and take appropriate action.
Thanks in advance.
FML,
PB
BOOM ‘interwebbed
BOOM ‘interwebbed
I am apalled! Nay I am really, really apalled by the actions of this SBM rogue web site. The intertubes are meant to be a bastion of integrity and dignity, not some spurilous nexus of tubular corruption and graft. I raise my glass to the WLA and their king, Chitownblue, for ascending to confront this queeralous foe and protecting the innocent and incontinent masses. Yeah, though we all shall opine, none should be persecuted for their opinatry. For I ask ye, the hell? Ah, and none shall answer. Yank briskly your rights and entitlements from the mire of abuse and malice and step proudly upon ye earthen dirt wherefore you shall stand yet and be counted. Be not meek. Be bold, and great forces will come to your aide! Stand and deliver!
I am apalled! Nay I am really, really apalled by the actions of this SBM rogue web site. The intertubes are meant to be a bastion of integrity and dignity, not some spurilous nexus of tubular corruption and graft. I raise my glass to the WLA and their king, Chitownblue, for ascending to confront this queeralous foe and protecting the innocent and incontinent masses. Yeah, though we all shall opine, none should be persecuted for their opinatry. For I ask ye, the hell? Ah, and none shall answer. Yank briskly your rights and entitlements from the mire of abuse and malice and step proudly upon ye earthen dirt wherefore you shall stand yet and be counted. Be not meek. Be bold, and great forces will come to your aide! Stand and deliver!
I, for one, applaud the efforts of BBC to brind down this communist menace web site.
USA!
I, for one, applaud the efforts of BBC to brind down this communist menace web site.
USA!
You guys rawk! Especially that hairy Greek guy.
You guys rawk! Especially that hairy Greek guy.
You guys are late with your payment, AGAIN!
Pay up or we shut you down.
You guys are late with your payment, AGAIN!
Pay up or we shut you down.
Snuggy Bear sail of the sentury. All items half off! Save 25%!
Snuggy Bear sail of the sentury. All items half off! Save 25%!
Wrong chat.
Wrong chat.
….
….
Audience calm down
Audience calm down
I love CHEESE you idiots! Cheese!
I love CHEESE you idiots! Cheese!
http://www.thebuckeyebattlecry.com/2010/3/15/1373385/ohios-best-sports-blogger-contest
http://www.thebuckeyebattlecry.com/2010/3/15/1373385/ohios-best-sports-blogger-contest
u kno wolfverine shood watch makin cyber terror for love of babby jesus u kno not funny to make pic about television show and call bueckeye that because many pre natalin mom out there have child they want to be fitness comptitor or even member of general publick but instad have young kid with not much brane not much passion not much grit so turn out to be like ken yon rambo not have much hart end up on wrong side of trak trying to get goose on in speedincar.
u kno wolfverine shood watch makin cyber terror for love of babby jesus u kno not funny to make pic about television show and call bueckeye that because many pre natalin mom out there have child they want to be fitness comptitor or even member of general publick but instad have young kid with not much brane not much passion not much grit so turn out to be like ken yon rambo not have much hart end up on wrong side of trak trying to get goose on in speedincar.
I’m an OSU grad and I cannot express how unsurprised I am by this. I have gotten in a dust-up or two with that douche (in the 11W comments section, IIRC), and … well, judging by his actions, I’m not gonna go any further and am just going to stick with that: I am not surprised. Dude is a cockbag.
Great blog, guys.
I’m an OSU grad and I cannot express how unsurprised I am by this. I have gotten in a dust-up or two with that douche (in the 11W comments section, IIRC), and … well, judging by his actions, I’m not gonna go any further and am just going to stick with that: I am not surprised. Dude is a cockbag.
Great blog, guys.
Peter Bean seems like a nice guy and I like SBN’s appropriate response, but can anyone tell me about the legal ramifications in this situation? We know that Jeff violated site policy by doing what he did. Is SBN responsible for Jeff’s actions, or, by taking swift punitive action, do they lose culpability?
Peter Bean seems like a nice guy and I like SBN’s appropriate response, but can anyone tell me about the legal ramifications in this situation? We know that Jeff violated site policy by doing what he did. Is SBN responsible for Jeff’s actions, or, by taking swift punitive action, do they lose culpability?
Everyone gets e-punched in the e-face, thats an e-fact
Everyone gets e-punched in the e-face, thats an e-fact
I’m thinking that BBC would not appreciate any comments about their “padded swords of various length,” would they?
SBN- these assholes are the ones you chose to represent Ohio State. Heckuva job.
I’m thinking that BBC would not appreciate any comments about their “padded swords of various length,” would they?
SBN- these assholes are the ones you chose to represent Ohio State. Heckuva job.
Nice piece. I think it’s pretty commendable that you are able to stretch the communism meme from a thread all the way into a whole entire blog. It’s pretty thin, but the this blog exists, so congratulations.
Nice piece. I think it’s pretty commendable that you are able to stretch the communism meme from a thread all the way into a whole entire blog. It’s pretty thin, but the this blog exists, so congratulations.