'Revenge porn' site operator convicted, faces 20 years in prison
The man responsible for running revenge porn site 'ugotposted.com' has been found guilty of identity theft and extortion. The San Diego County Superior Court jury decided that Kevin Bollaert could now face up to 20 years in prison for the offenses. According to the WSJ, it's the first conviction of a revenge porn website operator, although the Federal Trade Commission has also acted to shut down photo archives and the public sharing of photos of people without their permission. In fact, while California's new revenge porn law has now been established, it wasn't used in either case.
Between 2012 and 2013, Bollaert allowed to people to post more than 10,000 images, anonymously, without the knowledge of the people in the photos. Often personal information like their name, cities where they lived and even Facebook profiles were attached to the images. He even ran another site alongside the shaming one, offering to remove images -- for a charge of up to $350. The prosecution said that Bollaert made tens of thousands of dollars from this. Meanwhile, the defense argued in court that while the site might have been immoral, the site owner didn't break the law by allowing others to post images there. The jury, however, didn't see it that way. Bollaert is set to be sentenced on April 3.
