| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14] > | Another unauthorised directory listing - lingvopoint.com Thread poster: Chosana Thanabhumi
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Paulinho Fonseca 
Brazil
Local time: 18:37
Member (2011)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
AndreaBauer wrote:
That's really good news and it shows that we can do something if we "fight" all together.
So keep your eyes open!!
What concerns me most is that till now Proz.com hasn't said anything to us...I mean, we are all here talking about this, filing complaints, etc....
I decided for paying member as I thought this would keep my info 'kind of safe'.
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...my points have gone together with my profile, too!
| | | | DLyons
Ireland
Local time: 22:37
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Cyprus link? | Nov 16, 2014 |
The contact information for lingvopoint.com could be completely fictitious, but some of its fields are shared with real people in Cyprus which I find mildly suspicious.
The contact 'phone is +357.24668800 which is a (possibly invented) Cyprus number. This, however, is listed for various domain names as being for a Savvas Lazarides and a Margarita Eleni Voskou. These are real people who are associated with a real A.J.K. Bureau of Consultants Limited in Larnaca, so it may<... See more The contact information for lingvopoint.com could be completely fictitious, but some of its fields are shared with real people in Cyprus which I find mildly suspicious.
The contact 'phone is +357.24668800 which is a (possibly invented) Cyprus number. This, however, is listed for various domain names as being for a Savvas Lazarides and a Margarita Eleni Voskou. These are real people who are associated with a real A.J.K. Bureau of Consultants Limited in Larnaca, so it may be an actual Cyprus 'phone number. There is also shared address information 33 Porter Road, P.O. Box 3169.
This suggests that lingvopoint may have some link with the A.J.K. group of companies (AJKFUND.COM, AJKBAH.COM, AJKVC.COM, AJKBOC.COM, AJKBEL.COM).
Or they could even be targeting innocent people - but why? ▲ Collapse
| | | | lammersdorf (X)
Spain
Local time: 23:37
English to German
+ ...
| My "profile" | Nov 16, 2014 |
is still there. When I became aware of that scam I deleted/altered the information contained therein - is practically useless now. I will leave it like this for quite a while.
As I posted earlier, they apparently crawled ProZ constantly. When I first looked at that fake profile, all data I ever entered in my ProZ-Profile was there. After changing it to uselessness on ProZ , that scam-site only contained my name and my logo (although I had removed it from my profile). All other infor... See more is still there. When I became aware of that scam I deleted/altered the information contained therein - is practically useless now. I will leave it like this for quite a while.
As I posted earlier, they apparently crawled ProZ constantly. When I first looked at that fake profile, all data I ever entered in my ProZ-Profile was there. After changing it to uselessness on ProZ , that scam-site only contained my name and my logo (although I had removed it from my profile). All other information had gone.
So, whatever they may sell to other scammers now, is useless.
[Edited at 2014-11-16 14:00 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Cached version | Nov 16, 2014 |
lammersdorf wrote:
My "profile" is still there.
You are probably getting a cached version of the site for a while, as I, like many others here, can no longer load the site. Try in another browser that hasn't loaded the site before, and it should be gone.
There is no miracle solution to avoid rogue sites stealing contents available to the public, so the various criticism of Proz seen in this forum is a bit unfair. Each one of us decides which information we want to make public on Proz, and once it's public, it can be stolen. Proz could perhaps make it more difficult to commit mass theft, but at which price, and how much would it increase the membership fee? Do we want to shoot sparrows with cannons? Every single web site has the same problem with copyright infringement.
Of course, a translator can decide not to make any information public, but no potential clients would then be able to find the translator. It's difficult to sell a service if information about the service provider is secret.
The best thing we can realistically do is to keep an eye open for such sites and act quickly to get them taken down, as we have done in this case. Western registrars and hosting companies are not interested in lawsuits and therefore usually act quickly on abuse reports. It is more difficult when the registrar or hosting company is in Russia or China for example.
| | | | | Thanks for reporting this, staff are working on it | Nov 16, 2014 |
Hello all,
As I posted earlier ( http://www.proz.com/post/2366096#2366096 ), site staff are aware of the issue and are working on it. I have posted the following notice on the home page:
It has been reported that directory listings from some ProZ.com users have been published on lingvopoint.com. The ProZ.com site team is aware of the issue and is taking steps to address this. To be clear, there is no indication that the information involved is private, but rather information available publicly in profiles. Most of the members who have reported this issue indicate that the republished material is a mixture of public profile information and fabricated details. It has also been reported that the publicly visible information on some job postings has been republished on the site mentioned. The ProZ.com site team is working to have the republished material removed, and will post any updates on the issue here and in the forum thread where it was reported: http://www.proz.com/topic/277712 Thank you to the members who reported this in the forum and via the support system.
I'll post back here with further news.
Jared
| | | | Gillian Hargreaves (X)
Local time: 22:37
French to English
+ ...
| The site seems to have been taken down | Nov 16, 2014 |
The good news is that it seems that the www.lingvopoint.com site has now been taken down. The bad news is that it will almost certainly resurface under another identity... and we as individual translators seem powerless to do anything about this
| | | | Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 23:37
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Jared Tabor wrote: Hello all, As I posted earlier ( http://www.proz.com/post/2366096#2366096 ), site staff are aware of the issue and are working on it. I have posted the following notice on the home page: It has been reported that directory listings from some ProZ.com users have been published on lingvopoint.com. The ProZ.com site team is aware of the issue and is taking steps to address this. To be clear, there is no indication that the information involved is private, but rather information available publicly in profiles. Most of the members who have reported this issue indicate that the republished material is a mixture of public profile information and fabricated details. It has also been reported that the publicly visible information on some job postings has been republished on the site mentioned. The ProZ.com site team is working to have the republished material removed, and will post any updates on the issue here and in the forum thread where it was reported: http://www.proz.com/topic/277712 Thank you to the members who reported this in the forum and via the support system. Thank you, Jarod, for your support.  I'll post back here with further news. Jared
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Maija Cirule
Latvia
Local time: 00:37
German to English
+ ...
| You are absolutely right | Nov 16, 2014 |
Thomas Frost wrote: lammersdorf wrote:
My "profile" is still there.
Of course, a translator can decide not to make any information public, but no potential clients would then be able to find the translator. It's difficult to sell a service if information about the service provider is secret. The best thing we can realistically do is to keep an eye open for such sites and act quickly to get them taken down, as we have done in this case. Western registrars and hosting companies are not interested in lawsuits and therefore usually act quickly on abuse reports. It is more difficult when the registrar or hosting company is in Russia or China for example.
Unfortunately, the risk of our public information being copied and reproduced is part and parcel of marketing our services and ProZ cannot do anything to stop this. You can make your info private but in my book the main aim of our profiles is to attract new clients and with private profiles this is impossible.
| | | | | My own experience | Nov 16, 2014 |
Gillian Hargreaves wrote: The bad news is that it will almost certainly resurface under another identity... and we as individual translators seem powerless to do anything about this
I'm not sure we need to be so pessimistic. I've had quite a few cases of theft of articles from one of my own sites, but once the offending copy was taken down, I have not had cases of the same offender doing it again.
It costs the offender money and effort to keep doing this, perhaps under new domains, and it takes time for new domains to be referenced by search engines. If they understand their pirate sites are taken down as soon as we discover them, they may well turn their attention to someone else to steal from.
And we are not powerless, as we have demonstrated. One single DMCA report can be enough.
| | | | Paul Dixon
Brazil
Local time: 18:37
Portuguese to English
+ ...
I have just tried to access the Lingvopoint site and got the following message:
O Google Chrome não pôde carregar a página porque lingvopoint.com demorou muito para responder. O site está em manutenção ou sua conexão com a Internet não está funcionando.
Acessar uma cópia em cache de http://lingvopoint.com/
Pesquise no Google: lingvozone [lupa]
Google Chrome can not load th... See more I have just tried to access the Lingvopoint site and got the following message:
O Google Chrome não pôde carregar a página porque lingvopoint.com demorou muito para responder. O site está em manutenção ou sua conexão com a Internet não está funcionando.
Acessar uma cópia em cache de http://lingvopoint.com/
Pesquise no Google: lingvozone [lupa]
Google Chrome can not load the page because lingvopoint.com took a long time to respond. The site is undergoing maintenance or your Internet connection is not working.
Access a cache copy of http://lingvopoint.com
Google search: lingvozone [magnifying glass]
So a new name, that of Lingvozone, has now appeared. I have checked this out and it is an online translator and dictionary service based in New York City, part of LingvoSoft Online. Checking with Scamadviser this site is deemed 'very safe'. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Natalie
Poland
Local time: 23:37
Member (2002)
English to Russian
+ ...
MODERATOR SITE LOCALIZER | This is not a new warning | Nov 16, 2014 |
Google simply gives you an advise: as you are unable to reach a "lingvo-something" site you could use another "lingvo-something" site, in this case "lingvozone" as the most similar name.
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| Please don't be too quick to let Proz completely off the hook. | Nov 16, 2014 |
Maija Cirule wrote (with my emphasis):
Unfortunately, the risk of our public information being copied and reproduced is part and parcel of marketing our services and ProZ cannot do anything to stop this. You can make your info private but in my book the main aim of our profiles is to attract new clients and with private profiles this is impossible.
As I mentioned back on page 2 of this thread, one reason thieves like lingvopoint come pilfering data here is because it's easy to do. Even without materially affecting the visibility of members' promotional information, there are some things the site could do to mitigate the risk - basically by making it sufficiently difficult to grab data in bulk that most would-be thieves wouldn't find it worth their while even attempting it.
lingvopoint's 'public' objective was to set themselves up as an expensive 'middleman' between Proz members and Proz job-posters. With the charges listed on the site (quoted elsewhere in this thread), they wouldn't need many translators or clients to fall into their trap in order to make a few tens of thousands of USD. That wouldn't be a poor reward for a few hours' IT programming by some geek looking for a fast buck. And when they get found out? Close down and start again, targetting some other - probably totally unrelated - professional field where there's a potential 'middleman' role - recruitment of temporary medical staff, for example.
The action by members to get lingvopoint shut down in such a short time (and over the weekend), is good news as far as it goes. But, for Proz, this should not be seen as the end of the story. Rather, it should mark the start of a full review of the handling of users' and members' profesional and private data on Proz.com, with a view to achieving a better balance between the need to market members' services effectively and the need to protect them from scammers like lingvopoint.
| | | | Jeff Whittaker
United States
Local time: 17:37
Spanish to English
+ ...
| The overall scam is the main problem | Nov 16, 2014 |
There was also another site in another thread that was doing the same thing (copying translators' profiles). For me personally, I don't mind so much that they copied my information. As others have stated, we post public information in order to look for work (not that we'll ever get any work from those sites).
My main issue is not the fact that the information was copied, but rather the reason it was copied. It was not copied in order to provide us with jobs or free advertising, but ... See more There was also another site in another thread that was doing the same thing (copying translators' profiles). For me personally, I don't mind so much that they copied my information. As others have stated, we post public information in order to look for work (not that we'll ever get any work from those sites).
My main issue is not the fact that the information was copied, but rather the reason it was copied. It was not copied in order to provide us with jobs or free advertising, but rather as a ruse to trick other people into signing up for and paying for a membership to their site (by making it appear as though thousands of other translators had signed up, when in reality then had not).
In essence, our information is being used to scam other people and that's the main concern in my opinion.
These people and the people stealing resumes and impersonating translators need to be located and repeated pressure needs to be put on them by their local police authorities until the authorities get tired of hearing about it and take action - or we could take up a collection and hire some local thugs to "take care of the problem".
[Edited at 2014-11-16 15:32 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Paulinho Fonseca
Brazil
Local time: 18:37
Member (2011)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| The thing goes beyond copying a profile. I did not review jobs there. | Nov 16, 2014 |
Thayenga wrote: Jared Tabor wrote: Hello all, As I posted earlier ( http://www.proz.com/post/2366096#2366096 ), site staff are aware of the issue and are working on it. I have posted the following notice on the home page: It has been reported that directory listings from some ProZ.com users have been published on lingvopoint.com. The ProZ.com site team is aware of the issue and is taking steps to address this. To be clear, there is no indication that the information involved is private, but rather information available publicly in profiles. Most of the members who have reported this issue indicate that the republished material is a mixture of public profile information and fabricated details. It has also been reported that the publicly visible information on some job postings has been republished on the site mentioned. The ProZ.com site team is working to have the republished material removed, and will post any updates on the issue here and in the forum thread where it was reported: http://www.proz.com/topic/277712 Thank you to the members who reported this in the forum and via the support system. Thank you, Jarod, for your support. I'll post back here with further news. Jared
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