The plague of mug shot website extortion scams thrives in the silence of its victims. The scammers responsible for these websites and their counterpart “reputation/removal companies” make money because they know that you will pay them to avoid the threat of being publicly embarrassed.
The commercially driven purpose of all the various mug shot websites is an undeniable explanation for their existence. Such flagrant profiteering of public misfortune scandalously exploits our right to access public arrest records and is a distasteful polluted cloudiness stench on the sunniness of open government.
We will continue to urge companies that currently abet mug shot websites to reconsider their participation.