FinTelegram has already reported on Italian boiler room operator and multi-entrepreneur Gennaro Lanza‘s battle with the review platform Gripeo. Lanza is also no stranger to FinTelegram. He loves to file DMCA complaints with Google against critical reviews to remove them from the search results. He feels blackmailed by Gripeo (website) and the Spanish reputation agency Eliminalia and Russian agents, he says in the complaints.
The Senseless DMCA Strategy
FinTelegram has already received several DMCA complaints from Gennaro Lanza. To this end, he (or his people) copies articles from FinTelegram and publishes them backdated on strange websites. We regularly issue counter-notifications, and that’s that. The complainant must prove to Google that he has taken legal action against the alleged copyright infringer. But Lanza doesn’t do that.
Sometimes (as in the Gripeo case), the alleged infringers strike back and file a DMCA Complaint against Lanza for copying and publishing content without permission.
We do not know whether and how the reputation agency Eliminalia (website) is actually involved in a scam or a threat against Lanza. What we do know is that many reputation agencies search the web for negative news about people and companies and then actively contact the people and companies in question. They promise to remove negative reporting in return for payment of appropriate fees. We recommend being very careful with such agencies.
Share information
If you have any information about Gennaro Lanza, Gripeo, and their activities, please let us know via our whistleblowing system, Whistle42. We would like to know more about it.
