Thursday, September 2, 2010

Solving the Puzzle of the Image Thief

So I caught on to the idea that someone had scoured my entire blog for hours, taking each and every photo on this blog. I have found them out - the website is called www.dongo.org.

They have mentioned my site on their website, and so someone has seen my web address, and has ventured to my site after leaving www.dongo.org. The reason I know this is because I have a I.P address identifier on this blog and I can see who enters this blog and where they were prior to coming to this website.

It appears that "Dongo.org" is just one of many website runs by this Belgium set up, that takes people's images, sets up random websites, and then gets money for everytime someone clicks on an image, or heads to their website.

In laymans terms, they steal images, label them as their own, when Google images does a search for images of a particular topic, people see the pictures come up as their own, people click on them, it goes to their website, and then they earn money from advertisers and sponsors who pay them based on how many clicks they receive.

These websites include:

z6.com
travel pictures, picture, tourism, country
visit-kenya.com
beaches, coast, kenya, holiday
travelingonline.com
photos, pictures, travel, picture
searchpictures.net 0.23K images, pics, travel, holidays
UK Tourist, Leisure & Holiday Attraction Images, Tourism in England, Great Britain micbinks.co.uk
images, holiday, leisure, tourism flag United Kingdom
Lloret Guide lloretguide.com
lloret de mar, travel, beach, beaches flag United Kingdom
BOKELBERG.COM | Every eye forms its own Beauty - stock, stock image, stock library, photo, photographer, pictures bokelberg.us
pictures, images, travel, pics
BOKELBERG.COM | Every eye forms its own Beauty - stock, stock image, stock library, photo, photographer, pictures bokelberg.com
people, picture, photos, pics
traveljournals.net 3.43K images, picture, photos, pictures
Explain This Image - WTF Pics, Images That Make No Sense explainthisimage.com 5.74K pic, picture, photos, pictures


I dont like pulling out this card, but I will.

Whoever you are, I am a lawyer who is very familiar with intellectual property law and have significant connections throughout Europe, including the Netherlands.

I am aware of who you are.

I am currently seeking further legal advice with respect to the taking of copyrighted images from my blog.

You have been warned.


4 comments:

  1. I'm glad I found this! I have a strange issue on an old blog that I have - someone is getting referred by dongo.org, but I don't know why. They don't seem to have taken any images from my site (there aren't any worth stealing), and I don't see it listed in their "Links" pull-down (maybe the link names don't actually match up with the sites they link to?, or maybe they change them every few days?), so I'm not sure what's going on.

    But it's pretty easy to notice because the blog usually gets only one visit every week or two, and it's always from them.

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  2. I have had the strange visits from Dongo and had no idea what it was about. Thanks for the post. I'm glad I know now. It was creeping me out.

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  3. Hi,

    I found this blog after doing a google search on "rerouting IP address to dongo.org"
    I was trying to find out as much as I can about this. My thought (at least for myself) is that I had trouble with a person local to me, stalking my blog and using information to try to cause trouble for me. I do have an IP identifier and was able to bust this person with a well put together detailed trail that I had been monitoring for some time. The thing is, about 3 months after this all came out on a public forum, 'someone' started hitting my blog with the referring URL being: http://www.dongo.org/kenya-bel...post_and_the_belgian_post.html
    This 'person' was using the same browser, Operating system, monitor resolution and color depth as the person I had 'called out' a few months ago.
    I'm thinking that dongo address is using an IP Re-router to hide their actual IP address. I wonder if this is what's happening to you as well??
    It almost sounds like what ever specific IP Re-router they are using, it uses a standard website (dongo) when hiding the IP address.

    Have you had any other problems with it or found out any other info on this Dongo site??

    ~ZZ

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  4. If you want to find out who owns the "dongo.org" site:
    http://whois.domaintools.com/dongo.org

    ReplyDelete