Pedos bad! Linking bad! Help!

June 14, 2007 2:35 PM

File this under disgusting. A pedophile site is linking to my friend's business site. They've been contacted to take the link down. Is there any other option to block unacceptable linking like this?
posted by miqueltegler to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

You could try the instructions outlined by Civil_Disobedient in this earlier askme question.

(not a snark! it just came up in the google search)
posted by davey_darling at 2:44 PM on June 14, 2007

Set up an automatic redirect if the referer is from the pedophile site.
posted by brool at 2:45 PM on June 14, 2007

On reload: what davey_darling said! Too slow today.
posted by brool at 2:46 PM on June 14, 2007

while that keeps the people from seeing your friend's site after clicking the link, a refresh or a copy/paste of the link would still let them in.

also, blocking the referrer, probably doesn't do any good for your google rank. maybe a dmca takedown notice might work, or a lawsuit for libel. i'm not a lawyer in anyway though... so... it'd be best if your friend talks to his lawyer. (he does have one, right?)
posted by sxtxixtxcxh at 3:43 PM on June 14, 2007

I'm pretty sure you don't have much of a legal argument to keep them from linking. And if you do... you shouldn't, even if in this case it would be nice.

That doesn't mean you can't be creative technically. Give the person from that redirect an automatic referral to, say, the FBI. or those perverted justice guys from Dateline. Or the like.

It shouldn't affect your pagerank much, as only coming from the pedo site will trigger it. And while it won't work from a copy/paste, kicking it to a real site (rather than blocking) will quash the simple refresh function, and besides, it's unlikely they are oging to past a long explanation of how (and why) you can't just click the below link, but need to blah blah blah
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 3:54 PM on June 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: think this is a windows server. the apps are all .net. so the .htaccess info doesn't apply. least not in my experience
posted by miqueltegler at 3:55 PM on June 14, 2007

maybe a dmca takedown notice might work

DO NOT DO THIS. False DMCA notices can backfire on you badly, and this doesn't trigger an actual DMCA situation.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 3:56 PM on June 14, 2007

Is this an IIS server?
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 3:56 PM on June 14, 2007

Has your friend reported the site to their hosting company? I'm pretty sure sites containing pedophilic content are illegal everywhere in the civilised world. Even if they're not breaking any laws most hosting companies have rules about offensive and objectionable content.

It might take a bit of work to find who hosts the site but a whois check on the domain would be a start. You never know it might be registered with a well known shared hosting provider. If not, try to find out who owns the nameservers that they're using - they are usually the hosting company.
posted by missmagenta at 4:02 PM on June 14, 2007

what John Kenneth Fisher said. You can play games if the users send a valid referer tag as mentioned in davey_darling's post...otherwise you can't do a thing assuming the people that affend you aren't breaking any relevant laws.
posted by mmascolino at 5:55 PM on June 14, 2007

Aside from the issue of the pedophile site linking to your friend's site, is the issue that you have identified a pedophile site. Websites that portray, encourage, or facilitate pedophilia are illegal and harmful to children everywhere. Report it to the police.

If your local police force isn't equipped to handle this type of report, try contacting the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit's Child Exploitation Section, which works with ISPs and police all over north america and is one of the leading police units dealing with this issue. If they can't help you, they will know where to direct you.

Seriously, pedophile sites have so many negative impacts, the least of which is unsavory linking.
posted by Kololo at 6:34 PM on June 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

I think it's germane whether you're talking about a site for pedophiles, or a site that hosts pedophilia. If the latter, obviously the authorities will be interested. If the former, there may be little they can do, per free speech protections here and elsewhere. In either case, they probably already know and half the users are cops as it is.

(On that note, see Miguel's thread from 2002.)
posted by dhartung at 6:40 PM on June 14, 2007

<?php
if (strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']), 'pedophilesite.com')) {
  header('Location: http://goat.cx');
  die();
} //pwnt lol
?>

posted by brownpau at 7:09 PM on June 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

Out of curiosity, what business has aroused the interest of pedophiles?
posted by phrontist at 7:47 PM on June 14, 2007

Um..if you come across any site like this, linking to your business or not, call the FBI.
posted by fire&wings at 2:35 AM on June 15, 2007

Response by poster: it's a site that monitors gas prices nationwide for canada, i think.

my friend has contacted the host of the pedo site. and according to this site http://www.warriorsforinnocence.org/ the host is known to be sympathetic to these scumbags.

it's a pedo support site my guess. i wont visit the site to check. free speech be damned for these *#@!s, far as i'm concerned.

anyway, thanks everyone. some good ideas which i have passed along
posted by miqueltegler at 8:11 AM on June 15, 2007

Report 'em @ CyberTip.ca
posted by jkaczor at 4:28 PM on June 21, 2007

(I ensure you - that tip will get to the correct agency eventually ;-)

And no matter what others have said - police agencies will definately be interested in who frequents/is a member of a pedophile chat/support site.
posted by jkaczor at 4:32 PM on June 21, 2007