When Vlad Zablotskyy of Go-Beyond-MLS.com received a Cease & Desist letter from ePerks.com (which was shortly followed up by the threat of a lawsuit form ePerks CEO, Ben Behrouzi) he had cause to be concerned. In addition to the threat of litigation, somebody was also libeling Vlad has a child molester. (You will find a complete ePerks rundown here.)
Vlad wrote on his blog that he noticed that many of the fake positive ePerks comments with different names were all originating from the same IP address range (starting at 76.206.0.160) and using the same email address of sadighij@yahoo.com. This same IP address range has also been traced to forums where ePerks has posted false positive comments or shill comments as documented by Andy Beard.
1) Fake Comment Posted to Vlad’s Blog Using IP Address 76.206.0.161 / sadighij@yahoo.com
The comment above is very telling:
- It mentions the notion of a lawsuit before Vlad has received a C & D letter or threat of litigation from ePerks.
- Indicates a “blog about Vlad will also begin”.
2. Later, This blog by “Marco Hernandez” (blog deleted but archive screen shot here) appeared promising information about Vlad and suggests that readers search Yahoo Answers (where a false allegation of child molestation was later made, see below) From the blog, “If you search online on Yahoo Answers you will already get a glimpse of what I am talking about.”
3. When Vlad emailed the person leaving comments above at sadighij@yahoo.com to notify them that they were banned from making any further comments on blog. The following dialog took then place:
From: Jaffar Sadighi sadighij@yahoo.com
To: Vlad Zablotskyy vladzablotskyy@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 2:48:08 PM
Hehe. Vlad, I want you to know I eat people like you for breakfast. You are simply pouring fuel. I will enjoy this one.
—– Original Message —-
From: Vlad Zablotskyy vladzablotskyy@gmail.com
To: Jaffar Sadighi sadighij@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 2:48:08 PM
Subject: One word for you: BANNEDYou are banned from leaving further comments on my blogs. Enjoy your life.
4. Shortly Thereafter “Jaffar S” (note: Jaffar Sadighi is same name / email used in original comments to Vlad’s blog from IP Address 76.206.0.161) Posted the Following to Yahoo Answers:
Since Jaffar Sadighi is a unique name, it is reasonable to conclude that the liklihood that the Jaffar Sadighi that was posting fake pro ePerks comments on Vlad’s blog from IP address 76.206.0.160 and the “Jaffar S” that posted the child molestation claims on Yahoo Answers shortly thereafter are likely one and the same. The only way to positively make this connection is for Vlad to subpoena Yahoo Answers to get the IP Address of the person that posted the child molestation claims.
Bombshell
BrokerScience has obtained an email sent by an ePerks employee that was sent from IP address 76.206.0.160, the same range used by the person caught posting fake positive ePerks comments as “Jaffar S” to Vlad’s blog and is suspected to have been involved in posting the false child molestation allegations against Vlad on Yahoo Answers as “Jaffar S”.
The following email header (extracted from a customer service representative’s response to a general inquiry BrokerScience made) shows that this email originates from IP address 76.206.0.164, thereby connecting the ePerks corporate IP address range to the harassing comments on Vlad’s blog and and to fake positive ePerks comments on other forums as previously documented. BrokerScience has also obtained other emails associating ePerks with this IP Address range. For the less technically inclined, an email header allows you to track the exact point of origination for an email and the path it follows until it gets to its destination.
Email Header Confirming ePerks is Source of IP Address 76.206.0.164
What It All Means. The consequences of the IP address link to ePerks and the associated activity involving Vlad Zablotzkyy are as follows: If Vlad chooses to subpoena Yahoo Answers for the IP address used to post the slanderous false claims of child molestation against him and the post is found to have originated from ePerk’s IP address, then Vlad has a very clear case of slander and defamation that he can pursue against ePerks if he so chooses. While ePerks CEO, Ben Behrouzi threatened litigation on clearly baseless claims with nothing to gain, but everything to lose (how do you think we heard about ePerks?), Vlad stands to gain quite a bit if he takes them to task. In fact, there is speculation that Vlad has a strong case without a direct link to Yahoo Answers post. On a side note, many of the marketing activities we have shown that ePerks engages in have become illegal in England, only time will tell if the same becomes true in the United States.
BrokerScience’s Biggest Fans.
A quick glance at BrokerScience June visitor logs shows that the #3 and #4 most frequent visitors to BrokerScience also originate from the same IP address range associated with ePerks. We’re flattered. Really.
Related Stories:
Original BrokerScience Eperks Case Study
ePerks Threatens BrokerScience with Legal Action
BrokerScience Coverage of iHype.com Launch
Ben Behrouzi Updates Company “Values” and “Culture” Web Pages. Only One Problem: They’re Stolen
Beginning of the End: ePerks CEO Ben Behrouzi Sues Blogger, Confirms No Strategy in Place
BrokerScience Acquires BenBehrouzi.com
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you Get FREE RSS News Updates!
June 5th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Who knows whether a court order will be needed from Yahoo. Do you know how many people who work at Yahoo have families? It was their service which was also abused.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Wow. That is an EXCELLENT point Andy.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Great post Trace and absolutely wonderful detective work. Best of luck to Vlad!
June 18th, 2008 at 8:18 am
I agree the suit is about negative blog comments.
However if ePerks tries to say their website and traffic was greatly diminished by the blog I would beg to differ because the robots.txt entry is doing more damage to their website than any negative post on a blog would.
Makes you wonder if ePerks did the robots.txt file on purpose or if its out of incompetence on the webmasters behalf.
If VLAD wants to end this just send the attorneys this link. - Look at the areas I boxed in Red.
http://www.interiorliving.com/eperks.jpg
For those who need an explanation.
http://www.robotstxt.org/faq/prevent.html
How do I prevent robots scanning my site?
The quick way to prevent robots visiting your site is put these two lines into the /robots.txt file on your server
I would estimate they did this around October/November and didnt change it.
ejerks should fire their webmaster and stop the stupid lawsuit. The robots.txt is doing much more damage to their site than any blog posting saying something negative.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:02 am
@Mitchell: The ePerks robots.txt is missing a key component to be self defeating, the “/”, as shown in the robots.txt explanation you have provided….. easy to miss though….. If the slash were present, you are correct, they would be blocking crawling…. as is, it is a standard robots.txt file that is not preventing crawling…..
June 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Trace your right on the typo but I wonder how some spiders will interpret this. I have a feeling some are de-listing the site instead of ignoring the typo.
What led me to this is I tracked their keywords and noticed a huge decline in keyword links. All the way to ZERO which is tough to do. Confused to this I did a wayback and noticed they haven’t bothered with the site since August 2007. The site looked different to today and Why would wayback ignore the site? So I looked at the robots.txt file and just started laughing.
Its going to be tough for them to prove damages because I have a feeling they did much more damage to themselves.
However this ridiculous lawsuit should be the nail in their coffin.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:29 am
@mitchell: it is likely the keywords you are tracking are from a keyword spy…. they track paid advertising but are not indicative of organic search engine results…. we noted this change in paid advertising in our original eperks case study piece…..
Regarding the robots.txt, what hey have is 100% normal and acceptable…. that is what a blank robots.txt looks like…it is simply blank. If you follow the reference link you posted down a little bit, it goes in depth a bit more and explains that a blank version as ePerks has simply says “crawl everything” ….. hope this helps….