Mug-Shot Industry Digs Up Your Past, Charges You To Bury It

An anonymous reader writes "Exploiting Florida's liberal public-records laws and Google's search algorithms, a handful of entrepreneurs are making real money by publicly shaming people who've run afoul of Florida law. Florida.arrests.org, the biggest player, now hosts more than 4 million mugs. On the other side of the equation are firms like RemoveSlander, RemoveArrest.com and others that sometimes charge hundreds of dollars to get a mugshot removed. On the surface, the mug-shot sites and the reputation firms are mortal enemies. But behind the scenes, they have a symbiotic relationship that wrings cash out of the people exposed."

RemoveSlander is $700 now, not $400.

[flimflammer]

Hilarious. That site is dedicated solely to removing your mugshot from florida.arrest.org and the google search index, and all RemoveSlander does is pay the site $28 to remove both through an automated link. So the slander site brings in like $678 just to click a button. That's pretty good.

Re:Such is the price of public records...

[bjourne]

You are not entirely correct about the details. Getting the information is not illegal, but publishing it is. You may not publish a database online containing personally identifiable information. The mugshot database in the article would definitely classify and would carry a hefty fine. Still, there are ways to get around the law, for example there are multiple sites around here that let people see how much their neighbours earn because tax records are public. I don't think that the law is the problem and it is good that the information is public, but it's unfortunate that some people, like the authors of the website have no shame.