Google Enjoined in Small Claims Suit
This is probably an old story, but I ran across it while doing a Google search. At the bottom of my Google search, I saw this line:
“ In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org.”
The link takes you to this URL:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=937
Where Chilling Effects posts a letter to Google saying this:
Re: Transfer and removal of Blog
I have attached the court order which provides for the following:The removal of all of the information about myself, and my companies from your search results.
The transfer of the blog known as MarkRoyAnderson, over to me and the immediate removal of that blog from your search engines. The reason that the blogname is being transferred to me, is so that it can not he used again by anyone but me.
I have already set up an account with the blogspot.com. It is under the name [private]. With my email address “[private]“
Let me know how we can get this coordinated so that this can get done once and for all. This court order is to be effective immediately.
Sincerely
Mark Anderson [private]
Email: “[private]@aol.com”
Looks like a fellow named Joe Gallant took it upon himself to research a venture capital firm named “Summit Ventures.” He found out that the owner, Mark Anderson, may have been sentenced for securities-based mail fraud. (You can read Joe Gallant’s blog, archived at the Internet Archive.)
The small claims court then ordered Joe Gallant to transfer ownership of markroyanderson.blogspot.com to Mark Anderson, remove the domain name, and then enjoined Google from displaying search results referencing: “MARY ROY ANDERSON, CAMDEN HOLDINGS, SUMMITT VENTURES AND SUMMITT OIL AND GAS INC.”
Looks like from the SEC filings that Mr. Anderson and his various companies were trying to enter into investment deals and “misrepresenting” and “non-performing.” See this 8-K filing.
Interesting that a California small claims court can wield such power over terms and searched on the Internet. It effectively removes from the Internet–by removing from Google search results–public information such as SEC filings, and not just Gallant’s blog-with-a-grudge.
Regarding the SEC filings: how else would you find this information? I suppose you could go straight to the SEC web site. I also wonder if they’re on Yahoo! or MSN or other search engines. If someone can monopolize access to certain information by having them removed from search engines through the small claims court… Where are we?
Blogs, Internet, Technology | paul | 
July 26, 2007 10:32 am
5 Comments
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Subscribe
By Jack Payne, August 10, 2007 @ 9:25 pm
That is a great question. a small claims court? Hard to believe. How many leaps of appeals does a defendant have to make to get to a high court which will make sense of this? This has all the trappings of a nuisance suit–that worked.
By Yaz Okulu, March 13, 2008 @ 12:15 am
does anyone knows if there is any other information about this subject in other languages?
By green card, August 8, 2008 @ 11:23 am
do you know any information about this in english?
By A Concerned Citizen, October 19, 2008 @ 6:51 am
Thanks for publishing this explanation. Like you, I became interested in this topic after running a Google search and seeing the notice about one them being removed for legal reasons. After digging into this a little bit, I was shocked to see that a small claims court ruling could have such an effect under the circumstances.
I still don’t fully understand the situation well enough to comment authoritatively, but simply based on what I’ve learned so far, this situation appears to be one where a well-connected individual brought legal resources to bear in order to suppress the ability for people to discover his participation in unsavory business dealings. All US citizens who believe in the US Constitution and using the internet to discover truth should be concerned by what has happened in this case.
By A Concerned Citizen, October 19, 2008 @ 7:36 am
As a follow-up to my previous post, I’m happy to note that Forbes ran a story on Mark Roy Anderson titled, “You Can’t Keep a Bad Man Down”. The story can be found here: http://www.forbes.com/wallstreet/forbes/2007/1112/150.html.
Here is a quote from that story:
——————BEGIN QUOTE——————
The only one who really knows is Mark Roy Anderson, 53, the majority shareholder of both of these publicly traded (Bulletin Board) companies, through his Camden Holdings of Beverly Hills, Calif. But Anderson, a disbarred lawyer who served time for orchestrating a $50 million real estate fraud, isn’t talking. The Securities & Exchange Commission has filed a civil complaint. Among other things, the agency alleges that Contreras was a front for Anderson, who himself used Terax to defraud investors out of $3.5 million. “We got him early, before he dumped a bunch of inflated shares on the market,” says SEC attorney Kevin Edmundson. Criminal prosecutors are watching. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California have been investigating him since 2003 for fraud in another pink-sheet-listed company, NuWay Medical. Phillip Offill Jr., who is defending both Anderson and Contreras, says his clients have denied “the bulk” of the SEC’s charges.
The only surprise is that Anderson is still in business, holding big blocks of shares and debt in small energy and gaming ventures. You just can’t keep a bad man down.
——————-END QUOTE——————-
Here is a post from an investing site that has some very harsh criticism of Mark Roy Anderson: http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=23875833
——————BEGIN QUOTE——————
The funny thing is Anderson is at work and picks up the phone !
http://www.summittoil.com/
These things are just a cost of doing business for securities recidivists/convicts like Mark Anderson.
——————-END QUOTE——————-
Here is a link to a Federal US Court of Appeals filing of a case where Mark Roy Anderson was a defendant.
http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F2/993/1435/310643/
Although I’m no attorney, after reading just the first paragraph of this document (quoted here), I see that Anderson pleaded guilty to mail fraud, but then successfully appealed and had the judgment vacated.
——————BEGIN QUOTE——————
Mark Roy Anderson, who pleaded guilty to two counts of a thirty-count indictment for mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, appeals his conviction and sentence on the grounds that the district court coerced Anderson into pleading guilty and impermissibly participated in the plea bargaining process, improperly reserved judgment on Anderson’s motion regarding a state grant of immunity until after trial, erred in considering all of the fraudulent activities alleged in the indictment in sentencing Anderson, and ordered restitution in excess of that permitted by law. Because the trial judge improperly influenced the plea negotiation process, we vacate Anderson’s conviction.
——————-END QUOTE——————-
Personally, I don’t know if Mark Roy Anderson is guilty of committing any crime. However, if he is a criminal and he thinks that he can go on harming others while using legal resources to cover up his parasitic activities, he’s fighting a losing battle. Until this morning, I had never heard of Mark Roy Anderson. I came across this blog entry after seeing the strange notice of removal of a search result by Google. Then, I followed up by reading about it on ChillingEffects.org (http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?%3Fnotfounduncat=;NoticeID=2963&print=yes) and performed a few more Google searches. In less than an hour, I had pulled together all of the information in these two posts here. By linking them, Google and other search engines will eventually index them and make connections. One individual, no matter how determined or connected can suppress the truth. If you don’t want people to write critical things about you, then engage in moral behavior; trying to cover up your illicit activities is futile.