Client's Website Copied

[PBWDesigns]

It has come to my attention that one of my client's website has been completely copied by another website. My client has an online boutique and PayPal is the shopping cart. The fake website has kept the images and text, but changed the email addresses to their own. Also, the images when enlarged are not found. The fake website did not change the PayPal shopping cart buttons to reflect their email address, but left my customer's email address, so that my customer gets the payments.

I contacted the web host of the fake website and they told me that an attorney would need to write a cease and desist letter before they can do anything.

My questions are:

Why would someone copy this website, but still allow my customer to receive the payment?

Is there any other recourse other than contacting an attorney?

What can be done to prevent this from happening in the future?

Thanks so much!

Janet

[Daniel0]

Is there any other recourse other than contacting an attorney?

If you're competent enough you could always write it yourself.

What can be done to prevent this from happening in the future?

No. Not even large companies like Microsoft or Adobe are able to successfully protect themselves from piracy so you stand a little chance of doing it. Your best bet is to take legal action against those who infringe your (or your clients') copyrights.

[PBWDesigns]

Thank you for your reply, Daniel. That is what I thought.

Another problem is that Google is picking up the fake site and not my client's!

[Daniel0]

I suppose you could contact Google with the intention of getting the fake site blacklisted.

[Bob Carologees]

You could prevent right clicking so they can't view source?

Ok, I know, bad joke.

[clnewbill]

Janet, could it have been a 302 redirect exploit? I'm dealing with fallout of one of those myself. If so, then report the fake site to Google and add an .htaccess file to your client's public_html directory so that requests for both domainname.com and www.domainname.com go to your site.

This page offers more information.

[nacworld]

really strange what the people doing... he may not be an expert because forgot to check paypal email... and the google case really, better try to contact to the fake webpage admin or write " a cease and desist letter" to the hosting provider...