I have a son who was an 'A' student in high school, an athlete and a coach and tutor to younger kids. He went away to college and one week-end when he was home during his freshman year he got arrested - for being a foolish teenager - and a mug shot was taken of him at the county jail. Over the last 2.5 years we have been after him for not getting a job. Tonight I decide to google his name just to see what I find.
The second listing on google search was mugshots.com and this one misdemeanor arrest that took place 2.5 years ago. The incident was expunged so I was shocked to find this when I did my google search. I decided to dig deeper and it appears many, many innocent people or those who made a minor foolish mistake at some point in their lives are finding their lives destroyted by websites like mugshots.com and unpublisharrest.com. I also found there appears to be several class action suits against these companies.
If you go to www.mugshots.com and click on a link to find out how to 'unpublish' a mug shot, you are directed that you may submit a request to have your mugshot unpublished by using one of mugshot.com's 'authorized vendors' which happens to be only unpublisharrest.com. Supposedly for $399 you can pay their 'authorized vendor' to have your mugshot 'magically removed.' This is unethical, extortion, racketeering, ponzi scheme - I am not sure what all to call this, but at the very core, it is immoral and unconcsionable. We need to work to get these types of businesses shut down.
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