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Website that 'outs' cheaters comes to Canada, but is it legal?
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Toronto Star- A website where people can anonymously accuse spouses, friends or even enemies of cheating has expanded to Canada, though it’s unclear whether it might run afoul of the law here.
James McGibney, 37, a former U.S. Marine, launched his site CheaterVille.com in Las Vegas on Valentine’s Day. The idea came to him because a Marine buddy discovered his wife had an affair while he was away on a six-month deployment.
Anyone from jilted lovers to relatives can email anonymous posts to the website, which has a staff of 23. “It’s either someone is dating someone else and they find out they have cheated, so they blast them on Cheaterville.com to pay it forward for the next person,” he said.
“Or you know that your sister’s husband is cheating, but you also know if you tell your sister directly, she’ll flip out on you,” so you make an anonymous post, leaving it up to her to decide whether it’s true, McGibney said.
What if it isn’t true?
“We don’t validate info, just like Facebook doesn’t validate anything that is posted on a wall,” he said.
Nine times out of 10, he said, people respond directly to the post, either denying it or admitting to it.
While McGibney concedes there could be cases of blatant lying, “we don’t play judge or jury.”
There’s no fee for the service, and the website depends exclusively on advertising, which ranges from private investigators to ring tones. He has just added CupidVille, an online dating service, for those caught with a cheating partner who can meet others in the same situation.
“You’re both jaded, you’re both p…d off. That’s the premise for your relationship,” he said, adding other dating sites might not be the right fit.
McGibney, who is happily married with two young children, says the website has drawn at least 6 million page views in five months, sometimes as many as 250,000 a day.
Because the company is privately held, he won’t say how much revenue it generates, only that he is making money.
Growing web traffic from Canada prompted CheaterVille.com to expand here over the weekend, but defamation laws are different between Canada and the U.S.
In the U.S., website operators are immune from lawsuits for publishing defamatory statements posted by third parties, said Brian MacLeod Rogers, a media lawyer and instructor at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism.
“Only the person who posted can be sued,” he said. “In the U.S., it’s very clear. In Canada, it’s grey, but clearly at much greater risk of liability.”
Rogers said there is no judicial precedent in this area in Canada, but, “at first glance, a website operator would be liable for defamatory comment on their site.”
Defamation law differs between the two countries, but the onus on the defendant is much higher in Canada. However, if an individual were to win a libel suit against a website, he said it may be difficult to enforce a judgment if the company has no assets in Canada.
CheaterVille.com is marketing itself against Toronto-based AshleyMadison.com, a website that boasts of helping its 10 million members, who pay a fee to meet others, to cheat on their significant others.
“We’re targeting them 100 per cent. We have been picking a fight with them,” McGibney said. “I find it just disgusting what they do.”
But Noel Biderman, who runs Ashley Madison, which employs 110 people in Toronto, doesn’t see CheaterVille as competition.
“He’s just using my brand to help explain what his business is about,” Biderman said. “He’s in business, and he wants to create his own dating site for the jilted and the broken hearted who have been victims of affairs. That’s his prerogative.”
“I’m sure he’s going to be successful. There’s a lot of cheating happening, without thoughtfulness, whether it’s (Anthony) Weiner or (Arnold) Schwarzenegger, having an affair with your nanny or cleaning lady, having it through Twitter or in the workplace …. They are prescriptions for disaster.”
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