A recent exposé in the New York Times brought to light the physical and sexual assault threats of Tony Russo (aka Vitaly Borker), an online business owner in Brooklyn, who was using negative reviews of his eyeglass business to send him to the top of Google's search results.
Some quotes from the
article:
“I’m going to contact my credit card company,” she told him, “and dispute the charge.”
Until that moment, Mr. Russo was merely ornery. Now he erupted.
“Listen, bitch,” he fumed, according to Ms. Rodriguez. “I know your address. I’m one bridge over” — a reference, it turned out, to the company’s office in Brooklyn. Then, she said, he threatened to find her and commit an act of sexual violence too graphic to describe in a newspaper.
and
A few hours later, Mr. Russo raised the stakes sharply by sending another e-mail, this one with a photograph of the front of the apartment building where she and her fiancé lived.
Then her cellphone started ringing. And ringing. Ms. Rodriguez and her fiancé went to the police station at 1 a.m. to file a complaint.
“At that point,” she says, “I was scared.”
What a lovely man.
On the plus side,
justice was quickly served in this case, to the delight of his former customers - as well as thousands of readers after it went viral. They also made sure that Citibank, the NYPD, and Google, companies and organizations which had a responsibility to the victims in the story but had done little to help, were brought to heel as well.
It is unclear if Mr. Borker was right about the cause of DecorMyEyes’ surprisingly strong showing in online searches. But last week, Google published a post on its official blog stating that it had changed its search formula so that companies were penalized if they provided customers with what it called “an extremely poor user experience.”
For months, Ms. Rodriguez was unable to get much traction with any of the law enforcement entities she had called as she coped with Mr. Borker’s verbal and written attacks. Now, there seems to be a competition to punish him.
He has already been charged with aggravated harassment and stalking by local authorities and is scheduled to be arraigned on those charges on Dec. 22. The state attorney general’s office is conducting its own investigation and could bring additional state charges.
But federal law enforcement seemed eager to partake as well. In a statement released Monday, Preet Bharara, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, “Vitaly Borker, an alleged cyberbully and fraudster, cheated his customers, and when they complained, tried to intimidate them with obscenity and threats of serious violence.”
I believe a "Hells yeah!" is in order.
