I can't find a very recent post (November 4-5-6-7?) that had a link to a news story about some academic who SCRAPED data from TER in order to do an analysis of pricing and other trends. GaG posted a reply about one of the tables being very interesting. Where is that post and newspaper article?
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My point being ... that guy scraped lots of data from TER without a subpoena, w/o a search warrant, but maybe with VIP privs (to get all of the data fields).
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Lots of detailed "scraped" data was good enough for a big academic analysis. I don't know if it would be admissible as evidence in a legal proceeding. Even if it doesn't carry the weight of subpoenaed evidence, it provides guiding info.
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My point being, even if Eros HQ is in a country below sea level in Europe, and even if the raided location in the US is nothing but a separate and independent data - payment processing center, LE has probably SCRAPED all of Eros postings into their evidence bag anyway. Right? By scraping, they have the publicly visible part of Eros, not the billing and authentication and personal info part of Eros.
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I think I just answered by own question. Scraping public info gives them public info. The raid gives them the non-public billing, personal, etc. info.
Posted By: Ridleyone
Re: Has that ever Happened to TER?
Has TER ever been hit with an FBI raid? Like, this place could easily be accused of human trafficking or laundering. Has that issue ever come up here?
No matter what, I think the major result of this investigation will be to reveal how consensual these arrangements are. I expect they will be searching Eros forever and not find a single case of trafficking. The collective evidence could be used to help to strike down laws restricting and punishing consensual relationships between informed adults.
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If they turn over real names to the IRS, and if the IRS is so inclined, the IRS might find a bunch of undeclared income. Well, some people claim that the IRS can be tougher than the FBI!! Just ask Al Capone! Does the IRS want to spend tremendous resources collecting $50,000 each from 1000 escorts (who will have to do more escorting to pay it off) or use their resources to go after bigger fish? Like off-shore tax evading multimillionaires.