The end of the revenge porn phenomenon may be soon upon us, as a San Diego court recently sentenced revenge porn site operator Kevin Bollaert to 18 years in jail and a $10,000 fine. He was charged with identity theft and extortion for his role in revenge porn site ugotposted.com.

Bollaert was the operator of ugotposted.com, a site that encouraged jilted ex-lovers to post nude pictures of their former partner along with personal details such as name, address, and date of birth. Victims had to pay $300 to $350 to have the images removed. According to reports, Bollaert earned upwards of $30,000 from the removal fees.

“Sitting behind a computer, committing what is essentially a cowardly and criminal act, will not shield predators from the law or jail,” state Attorney General Kamala Harris told San Diego’s CBS8. “We will continue to be vigilant and investigate and prosecute those who commit these deplorable acts.”

While Bollaert isn’t the first revenge porn site operator to land in prison, he’s the first to be charged for his role in operating such a site. Hunter Moore, who ran the site Is Anyone Up? until 2012, was indicted in early 2014 for conspiracy, identity theft, and unauthorized access to a computer. Moore was paying a hacker by the name of Charles Evans to hack into email accounts of victims and extract nude pictures.

This looks like the beginning of the end of the revenge porn industry. Now that a precedent has been established in court to hand revenge porn site operators lengthy jail sentences, law enforcement and prosecutors should have no problem clearing out the rest of them. But, perhaps, some will take the initiative to shut down their sites first after seeing that their actions can have serious consequences.

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Today in Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed a bill into law that effectively stop Tesla from selling in the state with its direct buying business model.  This is a blow to consumers in Michigan who should have the right to choose how they purchase their vehicles.

The bill has language that will stop Tesla from using its direct sales to customers in Michigan.  This amendment was added by Repbulican State Senator Joe Hune, who used the loophole to add it to the bill, without being able to be up for debate or inquiry.  This was backed by GM, who said today ““We believe that House Bill 5606 will help ensure that all automotive manufacturers follow the same rules to operate in the State of Michigan; therefore, we encourage Governor Snyder to sign it.”.  Since the start of Tesla they have only sold .625% of GM’s first nine months of 2014  sales figures of 4,000,000 vehicles.

It may come with little surprise that Joe Hune has the Michigan Auto Dealers Association as one of his largest backers, to the tune of $14,400.  The wife’s firm also lobbies for the dealers, making things look even worse. In the gubernatorial race Governor Snyder is only leading by a very slim margin.  Likely if Governer Snyder did not pass the bill he would no doubt have been the target of attack ads that could place his lead in jeopardy.

This is bad for consumers, who should have a choice in how they buy a vehicle.  Buying from Tesla means that people could get what they want and pay the price for the car, not dealer mark ups or added equipment.  Some of the new D model Teslas running past $100,000 and  are in limited supply.  This would mean that dealers could possibly mark up the vehicle more than $10,000, which would not be a stretch of the imagination by any means.  This is money that dealers want to get their hands on and are trying to force on Tesla around the country.

Tesla released a statement saying: “By striking a single, but critical, word from MCLA 445.1574(14)(1)(i), the law governing franchise relations in Michigan, the dealers seek to force Tesla, a company that has never had a franchise dealership, into a body of law solely intended to govern the relationship between a manufacturer and its associated dealers. In so doing, they create an effective prohibition against Tesla opening a store in Michigan.  This amendment goes even further. It also seeks to prevent Tesla from operating a gallery in Michigan that simply provides information without conducting sales. We could even be barred from telling people about our car.”

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Within the past few days there have been multiple stories of banks trying to scrub the web of their mistakes. One story involves a Goldman Sachs contractor accidentally sending an email to a random Gmail user instead of sending it internally to a Goldman employee (@gmail.com vs @gs.com). In the story, Goldman Sachs demands that Google delete or ‘unsend’ the email from the Goldman contractor to the Gmail user. Unfortunately for Goldman, Google really has no reason to comply with Goldman’s request even if it was entirely erroneous. Goldman went as far as to sue Google in court demanding that they ‘unsend’ their email from Gmail’s servers, however this would be tantamount to effectively deleting a user’s email without their consent. Additionally, there really isn’t any legal precedent for Google to remove the email from the user’s inbox, especially if the mistake came from Goldman’s end and not Google’s. A typo is a mistake, and people make mistakes and it’s Goldman’s problem to deal with, they can’t just wish it away.

However, Goldman Sachs is not alone in trying to scrub the web of their mistakes. Merrill Lynch is attempting to do the same with Google searches by claiming to use the European privacy law to remove negative search results about their former CEO during the company’s rockiest times. Merrill Lynch’s old CEO, Stan O’Neil, was CEO of the company up until 2007 when he was forced to resign as CEO and was ultimately replaced by John Thain. Many attribute the decisions and choices made by Stan O’Neil to the company’s ultimate absorption into Bank of America in order to keep the firm solvent and alive. Wikipedia calls it a merger, but the reality is that it really was a bailout to save Merrill Lynch from going under. Business Insider reports that multiple entries regarding Stan O’Neal’s mistakes and role in Merrill’s near demise have been scrubbed from Google searches even though they were factually accurate and represented a fair summary of the events that led to his departure from the company.

The problem with these occurrences is that they basically exemplify the exact fears and problems that the new European law about having the right to be ‘forgotten’ would create. They allow people with money and power to effectively scrub anything about them that seems undesirable off the internet. The above examples are two perfect examples of wealthy banks and bankers trying to use their clout to manipulate how the world sees them with their money and power. But they aren’t alone, businessmen, politicians and virtually anyone with any kind of power would obviously like to curate the results about them on the internet and get rid of the ‘bad’ results. But then we no longer have an open and free internet and we’ve basically just got an incomplete picture of the world. One that we had before such laws were passed. Sure, there are probably examples where such things could be useful, but the reality is that you could be trying to hire someone and do a few Google searches and find out that person is clinically insane and tried to murder someone with a hammer. That is pertinent information that reflects upon someone’s character and may make them look bad, but is still an important part of how the information on the internet works.

Update: It looks like Goldman was actually successful in getting Google to comply with the request, even though Google said that they would first need a court order before they did so. It still isn’t clear if Google was served a court order or not, but based on Reuters’ reporting it seems as though the court case is still pending. The case is currently titled as, Goldman, Sachs & Co v. Google Inc, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 156295/2014.

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