Friday, May 18, 2007

Impersonators hijacking Google group hospitality

Complaint against impersonators on Google groups:

[John Dayal’s note: Several in leadership positions in the Dalit Friendship Network, headquartered in the US, the All India Christian Council and the All India Catholic Union, both India-based, have been receiving hate mail from various identified and unidentified sources for a long time.
In recent months, some persons have impersonated officers of these organisations, set up fake identities and e-groups on Google, Yahoo etc. These fake identities have broadcast fake `information’ and hate campaigns using these identities.
After tolerating it for some time, these groups have decided to take legal action under international law against these impersonators.
The following is a complaint sent to Google against persons who have created fake identities in the names of office bearers of the DFN, which recently was instrumental in initiating international advocacy for abolition of caste.]


From Rich Sweeney
To Google Groups,

We are filing a complaint against the Google Group at http://groups.google.co.uk/group/ChristianAtrocities?hl=en-GB for violating the Google Groups Terms of Service, Section 6, Bullet Point 6 “impersonate another person or entity, or falsify or delete any author attributions, legal or other proper notices or proprietary designations or labels of the origin or source of software or other material contained in a file that is Posted; “

In this group, an author, using the name “Nancy Ricks”, is disseminating anti-Christian hate emails to a large group of constituents. Our Executive Director, Nanci Ricks, has long been the target of Hindu fundamentalist and extremist attacks for her pioneering work in India to abolish the caste system and to give freedom to the Dalits. Please see our website at www.dalitnetwork.org and her bio at http://www.dalitnetwork.org/go?/dfn/about/C26/ . We recently received a notice from John Dayal, President of the All India Catholic Union that he received one of the emails from this group and initially thought it was from our Executive Director.

Please also see the Wikipedia listing for our organization at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit_Freedom_Network, particularly the history of revisions and edits and you will see the type of constant attack that our organization and Nanci Ricks is undergoing.

We are asking Google Group to request from this group that they stop using the moniker, “Nancy Ricks”, immediately.

We will be awaiting your reply.

Sincerely,

Richard Sweeney
Director of Operations
Dalit Freedom Network
303-221-1333 (work)
303-770-0663 (fax)

www.dalitnetwork.org
Dalit Freedom - Now and Forever!

Excerpts:
6. Appropriate Conduct

You agree that you are responsible for your own conduct and communications while using the Service and for any consequences thereof. You agree to use the Service only to send and receive messages and material that are legal, proper and related to the particular Group. By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree that when using the Service, you will not:

defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others;
post any inappropriate, defamatory, infringing, obscene, or unlawful Content;
post any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret or other proprietary right of any party (the "Rights"), unless you are the owner of the Rights or have the permission of the owner to Post such Content;
post messages that promote pyramid schemes, chain letters or disruptive commercial messages or advertisements, or anything else prohibited by the Group owner.
download any file Posted by another user of a Group that you know, or reasonably should know, that cannot be legally distributed in such manner;
impersonate another person or entity, or falsify or delete any author attributions, legal or other proper notices or proprietary designations or labels of the origin or source of software or other material contained in a file that is Posted;
restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the Service;
use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose;
remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on the Service;
interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers or networks connected to the Service, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Service;
use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application, or other device to retrieve or index any portion of the Service or collect information about users for any unauthorized purpose;
submit Content that falsely expresses or implies that such Content is sponsored or endorsed by Google;
create user accounts by automated means or under false or fraudulent pretenses;
promote or provide instructional information about illegal activities or promote physical harm or injury against any group or individual; or
transmit any viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses, or any items of a destructive nature.


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