Minc Law’s Digital Risk Protection Takedown Process Explained

If you signed up for Minc Law’s Digital Risk Protection (DRP) plan or are contemplating signing up, you probably know you can use the platform to monitor your digital reputation. Protecting your digital assets is essential for maintaining a positive reputation both on and off the internet.

With our service, you can be confident that your online footprint is being continually monitored—and that our DRP Team will work to address harmful content swiftly and effectively.

In this article, we will explain Minc Law’s Digital Risk Protection takedown process and everything you need to know before requesting a takedown.

What is Minc Law’s Digital Risk Protection Takedown Process?

Our Digital Risk Protection (DRP) service can protect you and your identity from countless cyber threats. Many of our customers who use our DRP services have been the targets of:

• Social media impersonation,
• Online harassment,
• Cyberbullying,
• Sharing of personal identifying information retrieved from data broker sites, and
• Other cybercrimes.

When you are impersonated on social media, a perpetrator uses your images and identifying information to create a new account under your name. They can then post defamatory or harmful content about you or on your behalf. These types of cyberattacks can be particularly devastating because your friends and customers may believe you are the one posting harmful content.

What Digital Assets Does DRP Protect?

Broadly, Minc Law’s DRP program protects your entire online presence by monitoring mentions of your name or keywords associated with you on all digital public forums. However, you may also be concerned about specific digital assets, such as social media. If this is the case, you must authenticate your digital assets on our platform.

What Does Authenticating My Assets Mean?

Shortly after signing up, you will receive an email from ZeroFox asking you to authenticate your social media accounts. By following the link in that email, you can log in to each of your social media accounts and give ZeroFox access. At this step, if you approve the access, these digital assets will be fully protected and monitored by our team.

If harmful content is posted on these sites, the takedown process will be much smoother.

All your other online assets, such as personal identifying information (PII) or a domain name, do not require a special authentication process. Once added to your account in our platform, they are considered authenticated and will be monitored as such.

Social Media Account Protection

Our service monitors all authenticated social media accounts for any signs of hacking, content posted in connection with your name, or harassing comments on your Facebook or Twitter. In some cases, we can even block, hide, or delete offensive content posted to or mentioning your authenticated account.

Authenticating your account also hastens the takedown process for unwanted content. When ZeroFox reports a harassing or impersonating account to the social media platform, your authenticated account is attached as proof that the other account should be removed.

To receive these benefits, you must allow ZeroFox access to your accounts when you authenticate them in the platform.

Domain or Website Protection

If you or your business has a registered domain name or website, it may alarm you to know that bad actors can create a website with a registered name that is confusingly similar to yours. They can then mimic your legitimate site, harming your brand’s bottom line—not to mention harming everyone who uses the fake site instead of yours. This activity is known as cybersquatting.

Adding domain or website protection to your entity allows DRP to monitor for domains strikingly similar to yours, which may be attempting to carry out this kind of scam.

With DRP identifying fraudulent domains and our firm’s attorneys pursuing removal actions against the website owner, you and your business are well-protected from these schemes.

The Digital Risk Protection Takedown Process Explained

There are a few different types of takedowns and takedown requests, but the process outlined below is similar for all of them. The takedown process depends on a few elements:

• The presence of an authorization form,
• The type of content being removed,
• Where the content is posted, and
• The amount and type of evidence we must submit with the request.

Below, we explore the takedown process for various types of harmful content, taking these elements into consideration.

What is an Authorization Form?

Minc Law’s authorization form supplements the contract you sign when you become a DRP customer. Signing this form allows us to take removal action.

Without this form, we cannot submit a takedown request to remove unwanted content on your behalf.

How Does the Takedown Process Work?

The takedown process begins when an alert is generated in Minc Law’s ZeroFox platform. Our DRP team and two tiers of analysts at ZeroFox review all incoming alerts. If we determine that the alert is relevant to you, we will escalate the matter and email you a notification. If you are a Minc Law client and a DRP customer, your attorney will also be notified of the alert.

The alerts most commonly eligible for a takedown request are impersonation alerts. These alerts are automatically assigned a “High” risk rating and sent to you via email as soon as the ZeroFox analysts verify that it is an impersonation account.

You should review the alert and determine whether it is something you wish to pursue. If so, you can email your attorney or contact the DRP team directly at drp@minclaw.com. Once we have confirmation you would like to proceed, we will charge the card we have on file (if applicable) and begin the process of submitting the applicable requests.

Social Media

Taking down harmful content on social media involves a two-pronged approach:

• Blocking the perpetrator on social media, and
• Sending a takedown request to the social media platform’s moderators.

Hiding, Deleting, & Blocking Content on Facebook & Twitter

If the concerning content is a subtweet, our service can ensure the account posting the content is blocked from posting anything on your page in the future. We can also hide the content the account has already posted from your followers’ view.

If the concerning content is a post or comment on a public Facebook page, our service can delete it, block the perpetrator from posting again, and hide any content they posted previously.

Takedown Requests With Authenticated Accounts

Once you reach out to our team and, if needed, pay the $150 fee, we begin the takedown process. ZeroFox makes a report of the harmful or fraudulent content to the social media platform, attaching proof that you have authenticated your account with our service.

If You Have Not Authenticated Your Social Media

If you have not authenticated your social media account with our platform, we will respond to your request by asking you to submit a photo of yourself holding your driver’s license or other photo ID first. We will then submit this photo to the platform for identity verification purposes.

Domain or Website Takedowns

Digital Risk Protection is not a legal service. If our DRP team discovers an impersonating domain or website, we will notify the attorney responsible for your matter if you are a Minc Law client. If you are not already a Minc Law client, you can reach out to us to be connected with an attorney to discuss your options for removal.

We also recommend reading our articles ‘How to Remove a Cybersquatter & Recover My Domain Name‘ and ‘Someone Registered My Name as a Domain Name: What Are My Options?’

How Can You Monitor Your Takedown Request’s Status?

As with other status checks for the DRP program, you do not have direct access to monitor the status of your takedown request. However, if you email DRP@minclaw.com or your contact from the DRP team, we will provide you with an update on its status as soon as possible.

How Much is the Takedown Fee?

If you have an authenticated Facebook or Twitter account with us, we work to hide harmful content free of charge.

When you sign up for DRP, our hope is that we never have to take any removal actions on your behalf. However, if we need to submit takedown requests, the cost will vary depending on your protection plan. At the basic, personal level, you will receive one free takedown upon signup. Any takedowns you require in addition to what is provided under your protection plan are $150 per takedown.

Are Takedown Requests Guaranteed?

The short and simple answer is no. Takedown requests of this type are not guaranteed.

Content takedowns are ultimately discretionary and determined by the platform itself. Whether the platform complies with our request is largely based on whether the content in question violates the platform’s terms and conditions and sometimes platforms respond inconsistently to takedown requests. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the requests we submit will result in removal.

What if the Takedown Request is Denied?

It is ZeroFox’s policy that once a takedown request is submitted, they will continue to submit the same request a total of 15 times before determining that the request has been denied by the platform.

However, a denial by the platform does not need to be the end of the road. You still have options for removal even if your request is denied.

First, if our team submitted a request based only on your verified account, you can try sending us a picture of your photo ID. We will re-submit the removal request to the platform with this additional evidence. While this method is still not a guaranteed solution, it is one way to improve your odds by forcing them to review your request again.

Conversely, if you did not already authenticate your account on our platform, you can. We will then submit another request on your behalf using both the photo ID and proof of your authenticated account. This solution is also not guaranteed, but if it causes the platform’s moderation team to review your request again, it improves your odds of success.

If your request is denied again, it may be necessary to resort to alternative reporting methods. We recommend contacting the content removal attorneys at Minc Law for additional guidance.

Get Started With Minc Law’s Digital Risk Protection

If you have already signed up, or are considering signing up, for Minc Law’s Digital Risk Protection service, and have further questions about the monitoring and takedown process, do not hesitate to reach out to us.

We strive to ensure that all DRP customers (and potential customers) understand how to navigate our DRP platform so that you can maximize your engagement.

★★★★★

“Attorney Dorrian Horsey handled a very sensitive, embarrassing case for me, and she did so with kindness, grace, and without judgement. She was fiercely dedicated the whole year it took and did not waiver. She has changed and, in fact, saved my life. Any client or firm should feel honored to have her on their team. Dorrian deserves, a promotion, a raise, a company car, three weeks paid vacation, and a corner window office when we return to offices. Words cannot fully express how thankful I am to Attorney Horsey. Thank you, Dorrian!”

LS

October 27, 2021

To learn more about our DRP service, reach out by calling (216) 373-7706, getting in touch with your primary contact at DRP, or emailing us at DRP@minclaw.com.