My Husband Googled Me the Night Before Last (an Update!)

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My Husband Googled Me the Night Before Last (an Update!)

Posted on January 6th, 2009 in Online Writing by Paula Mitchell Bentley

Plagiarism of our online articles has been rampant lately.

I recently wrote an article (My Husband Googled Me Last Night) about how my identity was stolen on Associated Content. There was a huge response and outpouring of support from readers regarding this issue. I’ve just received the following email from their site:

“Thank you for contacting us. The user has been banned from participation, and the CP page claiming your identity has been removed from our site. We appreciate your assistance.

We would like to make you aware that Associated Content is an open content network. Associated Content enables everyone to sign up and publish their content and then distribute that content to engaged audiences through its website (www.associatedcontent.com). Further, every user on our site must sign a contract with us claiming their identity. In this case, it is apparent that your identity has been misused. We have removed this user from participating on our site and apologize for any inconvenience. If other users on Triond.com identify that their identities have been misused on our web site, please have them contact us immediately.

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Regards,

Designated Agent

associatedcontent.com”

So this user, or at least the email account he or she used, is banned from that one site. There are dozens of others who are set up to create the same sorts of plagiarism opportunities. These sites do not demand that the content published there is original. Triond will not publish anything that is published somewhere else. And they do check. Sometimes they are very over-cautious as to what they will publish, at times even similar material is refused. It’s a little hard to write something that no one else anywhere has ever published anything similar to. However, I’d much prefer them to refuse an article that may have been stolen than just to publish material without caring where it came from. You can always revise an article or discuss it’s refusal with them. I can attest to the fact that the editors on Triond are very responsive, intelligent, and easy to deal with.

Some of the users here on Triond are mad at this site for not protecting our work. Others have said that they may leave the site altogether if something doesn’t change. I see it a different way…it’s up to the publishing sites to ensure that the work they publish is not stolen from somewhere else. Both Associated Content and the “new” publishing site Bukisa have had many major issues with people stealing and republishing Triond writer’s work. These are the sorts of sites that we should take issue with. If Triond can check for originality so can these other sites. Or they could check that posters are who they claim they are. Associated Content’s policy of having someone “sign a contract” with them to ensure that they aren’t lying about their identity is really lame. In reality it’s probably just a little box that is checked. I’m sure no one actually signs anything. And like someone who is willing to steal someone’s work is going to fess up to lying about their identity.

I would highly recommend checking both Associated Content and Bukisa to see if your words are being published without your consent. Many of Triond’s writers have found their work on Associated Content in the last couple of days and I know that Bukisa has had these same issues. These plagiarizers have been known to use both the original publisher’s identity as well as just stealing an article and pasting a different name on it. It would be nearly impossible to catch all instances of someone stealing your work because you’d have to individually search for each article title. I do highly recommend using google or another search engine to try to catch the major issues though. I hope that sharing this story has helped.

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Tags: associated content, Bukisa, copyright Infringement, Google, identity, identity theft, Online Writing, original, originality, Plagiarism, Publish, search, support, triond, update, Writing

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9 Responses to “My Husband Googled Me the Night Before Last (an Update!)”

papaleng
January 6th, 2009 at 1:42 am

Hurray and congrats.
Patrick Bernauw
January 6th, 2009 at 1:43 am

I agree with you on the issue Triond vs. AC or Bukisa. I’m on these sites too, on both with my real name… so I can keep a close watch. Maybe that’s an idea too to fight the Thiefs of Content?
Debra.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:49 am

Paula, you make a very good point and one I agree with. Like Patrick, I too use my real name just in case of identity issues.
Jasin
January 6th, 2009 at 2:57 am

Well I keep my stuff too short for them to post on other sites, its the big writers that need worry the most.
Great article.
Mark Bentley
January 6th, 2009 at 10:21 am

This is some useful information. Of course, keep in mind that even Googling your name will only go so far. In this case, someone figured that if they published in Paula\’s name, her friends would just figure that she had started publishing there and not complain like they did when someone posted Louie Jerome\’s article on Bukisa under a totally different name(http://tinyurl.com/8vq7×8).

What I really want at this point is some way to run a tool like Triond uses to figure out if your article is original. If you ran a similar tool once a week, it would show you where there were similar (possibly the same) articles.

Of course before you start screaming at Triond to implement this, let me say that this could be very time consuming (and thus expensive for them) to do for everyone\’s articles because it is hard to get a computer to do it properly. I would suggest something more like a tool that authors could opt in for and it could send them emails about suspected fraud (even that is a pain).

In the end though, Paula has a definite point that getting mad at Triond is silly because they are the only ones who are really doing their part to try to stop this. That is why I have not heard any complaints of Triond publishing stolen articles.
Betty Carew
January 6th, 2009 at 7:26 pm

I am so happy you did something about this Paula. There is way to much of this going on and i agree that Triond is as careful as they can be about the articles they accept to publish which really makes me comfortable using Triond to publish my articles.
thanks for a great article and great info.
Anna ReckSick
January 9th, 2009 at 6:39 pm

Thank you! I have found that 6 of my works are published~ The users copying my works have been banned! THANK YOU!!!!
eddiego65
January 11th, 2009 at 2:09 am

That’s good news. Congratulations.
nutuba
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm

Paula, thanks for bird-dogging this. Personally I am very impressed with Triond. The web site, layout, and tools seem geared to allow us to communicate as openly / freely as possible without feeling like “the administration” is getting in the way. I’m glad Triond checks each article, even if it means that publishing gets delayed a day or two sometimes. The issue of internet plagiarism is probably going to proliferate as time goes on, and more mechanisms need to be in place. But what? I don’t know. Anyway, I enjoyed your article. It was well organized, concise, and interesting and informative to read. Cheers, Joel