vinylweatherman
You type well loads
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2004
- Location
- United Kingdom
We already have a spam reporting section, but it runs on the assumption that the programs involved will do something about it. This does not seem to be happening in this case. Of more use would be reports to entities that can make life hard for operators who don't make the effort to police their affiliates. This could get their domains blacklisted, or even have Google react by making it harder still for any kind of SEO for participants in this industry to be effective.
It may also be worth badgering the owners of affected sites to make their own reports, as they would carry more weight in terms of possible criminal proceedings, as it is THEIR property that has been violated. A report from a victim carries more weight than one from a third party that believes another party is a victim.
It's also hard to police, as it would depend on which country has jurisdiction over the case. These sites are Australian, so Australian law would be the obvious one to look at. If this was UK sites being hacked, it would be a criminal act, and would involve the police, with the hacker responsible facing charges under the relatively new "Computer misuse act". Before this, such matters were covered by civil law, meaning a webmaster had to sue the hacker for damages.
I very much doubt the parties responsible for this are in Australia, and are probably working from a country that does not have any criminal code covering this, which would mean webmasters having to find where they are, and suing in a foreign court. It is not going to happen. It is far more likely that the security industry will develop a defence against this, and then sell it to the affected webmasters, and others who don't want to be a victim in the future.
Sanctions would have to be taken against the brands being marketed in the hope that it will force them to act. The programs KNOW who is behind this, as they can track the traffic from the hacked sites to specific affiliate accounts. Anti Money Laundering laws would require them to know the legal entity they are paying for this traffic, and if nothing else, they can freeze those accounts so that no profit can come from this activity.
The brands themselves could also find themselves under fire from governments for failing to act. I am surprised that they seem in no hurry to deal with this incident, as governments will view the condoning of this kind of activity as a negative reflection on not just the brands involved, but this industry as a whole.
They may have picked Australia for this because as far as the Australian government is concerned, the whole activity is illegal unless an Australian license is held, but they know there is not much that can be done over enforcing this, so they mostly turn a blind eye. However, we already have some game developers that insist their games are not made available to Australian players as they fear this may damage their own reputation with the Australian government, harming other ventures they might want to pursue there.
We also have other game developers that have lists of countries where despite the government not really doing much in the way of enforcement, there is no legal recognition of online gambling as a legitimate activity, and so game developers don't want to sully their future chances by getting involved in a legal "grey area" in letting their branding be seen on games offered to players from such countries.
