The motive behind this scheme appears to be backlinks, which are links from a reputable site to a site trying to improve its ranking. The owner of Tech4Gods admitted to buying backlinks for his gadget review site but denied owning the disputed image. He suggested that a former contractor might be trying to harm his ranking with spam links. As of now, Smith has not heard back from "Commonwealth Legal" after the five business day deadline they set.
Key takeaways:
- Journalist Ernie Smith received a DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice from a supposed law firm, Commonwealth Legal, asking him to credit a photo used in his post to their client, Tech4Gods.
- Commonwealth Legal, which claims to be based in Arizona, is suspected to be non-existent. The firm's website domain was registered in 2024 with a Canadian IP location and the address leads to a location that does not match the one indicated on the website.
- The website's list of attorneys are suspected to have AI-generated faces and their bios offer bizarre setups, with five of the 12 supposedly coming from acclaimed law schools at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and University of Chicago.
- The motive behind creating a fake law firm and sending quasi-legal demands to site owners is suspected to be for generating backlinks, which are links from a site that Google holds in high esteem to a site trying to rank up, powering the search engine optimization (SEO) market.