Bagley Spied on His Friends

Sorry, folks. I know this blog is gagging on the nauseating spectacle of the hideous Judd Bagley, Overstock.com's "social media" (i.e., cyberstalking) director. I really don't want to write so much about this pompous nonenity, but it seems that every new day brings something dreadful.

Internet sleuth "ScipioAfricanus," who first dug out Bagley's obsessive and slimy use of spyware, described today how Bagley snooped not on "enemies" of his boss Patrick Byrne but on his pals at a friendly website.

Bagley has been posting on a message board called "Wikipedia Review," which is highly critical of Wikipedia. Posing as a critic of Wikipedia, Bagley received a friendly reception as he pushed the "stock counterfeiting" cause and boasted about harassing unpopular Wiki administrators.

In early September, just as he was getting all comfy in his job as Byrne's "director of social media" (i.e., as operator of Overstock.com antisocialmedia.net corporate smear site) Bagley inserted spyware in a Wiki Review web posting. The spyware "bug" snooped on people clicking on the posts, and linked to a Bagley-related enterprise.

The details are in Scipio's posts here and here.

Meanwhile, Bagley continued to dig the shovel in deeper overnight, with posts such as this one, in which he boasted about hacking into Yahoo's message board system.

Bagley also started hounding, threatening, stalking, and sending spyware to a user critical of him at the Investor Village message board. ("Got what I need," bragged the refreshingly conscience-free corporate henchman.) IV's operators, not the brightest bulbs in the pack, acted quickly-- by revoking the victim's messaging privileges.

It's not only getting worse and worse, it is getting sicker and sicker, and increasingly off the charts from a legal perspective. (It moved way off the "unethical" meter long ago.) And I'm sorry to say that there will be more Tales of Judd to tell in coming days and week. They're nauseating, I know. But keep repeating to yourself "this is an officer of a public company, acting with the blessing of his CEO," and it will keep the bile down. For a while at least.

Oh, when I say there will be more Tales of Judd -- that's not speculation.

UPDATE: Internet sleuth "ScipioAfricanus" later found that a suspiciously Bagleyesque denizen of Wikipedia Review was traceable back to Bagley's business partner, Provo Labs. Read about it here.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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