COLUMBUS, Ohio—STDCarriers.com claims to be an international list of people with STDs, sexuallytransmitted diseases. It was launched in October 2008 by a recent college grad whose ex-girlfriend gave him herpes.
“I’m actually listed on there myself,“ says site creator and administrator Cyrus Sullivan. He didn’t put himself on the list. He waited for someone else to put his name in the database.
The site says its list includes people infected with one or more diseases, including HIV, from at least five countries. The list is not just porn stars, movie stars and athletes whose stories have been reported in the mainstream media, but average people who have been reported to the site by friends, ex’s and people who claim to have some knowledge of person’s health status.
He says he created the list to warn others.
“If this site had existed in its current state a little over a year ago,“ he says, “I would have been able to look this girl up and I wouldn’t be having to shell out money for Valtrex every month.“
“I think for prevention messages alone this is a really bad idea,“ warns Columbus AIDS Task Force Executive Director Peggy Anderson. She says the site can’t be successful even if all the information in its database is true.
“Primarily it doesn’t work because it can never be an all-inclusive list,“ she says. “If people don’t know their own status, you’re still not going to know. So you’re going to trust a faulty mechanism to tell you who’s safe and who’s not.“
The site’s database is built solely on reports from users and is far from comprehensive. It lists a total of 15 people in Ohio including two in Columbus, five in Cleveland and one in Galion. Anderson says that may give users a false impression of safety. People may not practice safe sex because their partner does not appear on the list.
Anyone who signs up for the site’s free membership can post information and the administrators take no responsibility for the accuracy of the posts. According to the site’s Legal Section, “Information is published by users who agree to the Terms of Use and then insert information into our database. As part of this agreement users assume full responsibility for the information that they publish.“ The data is then immediately visible on several of the site’s pages. One of the Ohio listings is for a Cincinnati-area woman who, according to police records, hit her boyfriend in the face with a bottle then, knowing her HIV status, spit in his face hoping to infect him. Hamilton County Jail records say she is charged with felony domestic violence. The information in her STDCarriers.com listing is based on an article from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Her condition is part of police record and is, therefore, a verifiable public record. Some of the postings even include photos, like a 19-year-old from Amherst, Ohio, who is alleged to have at least two STD’s.
That is not the case for many of the items in the database which are unsubstantiated. Sullivan says he audits the database occasionally but it’s up to the posters to be honest.
“They assume responsibility for what they post,“ he says. “They also agree to compensate victims once found.“
The site’s Terms of Use say misrepresenting your affiliation to a person will incur a $1,000 fine, posting content that violates the TOU costs $7,500 for each item, and “if you are found to have violated this section you agree to compensate the victim a monetary amount not less than $5,000 United Staes [sic] Dollars plus all legal expenses.“ Sullivan says he has never collected the money on a TOU violation or misuse.
CATF’s Anderson is concerned about the ramifications for people who’s names end up on the list, no matter whether the information is true or false.
“I’ve seen people lose their jobs, lose their housing, be kicked out of their families, their churches,“ she says of her years working with the HIV community. “And I just think putting any information out there, even if it is real, you are hurting people.“
“That’s ridiculous,“ says Sullivan, the site’s owner. “That is a flaw in the people that do those types of things to people. You should never throw someone out of their house or disown them just because they have HIV or any medical condition.“ He says he does not feel responsible for the fallout of posting the information.
Every “Carrier Profile” page includes a legal disclaimer that acknowledges the possibility of false postings and says the “site does not assert that any person listed does in fact have a sexually transmitted disease or that statements made about them are true.“
The site claims it is not legally liable for the information published by its users because it is protected by the First Amendment which would, according to the site’s Legal Section, “protect our right to report what someone else said even if what that person said was false because that fact that the statement was made would be true.“
“The fact that he’s merely republishing something somebody else told him does not give him a defense,“ says Kathleen Trafford, an attorney at Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP who handles many First Amendment Cases.
She says, depending on the website’s statements, the owner could be sued for defamation, libel or slander. “If there is nothing being done to check the fact that these would be true statements, I think that person is at real risk,“ she says. “While the first amendment gives you a right to make statements publicly, it doesn’t give you an unlimited right to say anything about anybody else.“
Sullivan says he believes he is fully protected but his members and users may find themselves in legal trouble. “I’m in a pretty good legal position, on my end,“ he says. He says he has heard from several attorneys but has never actually been sued. The web site expects that it will be fed bad information by users with a grudge and even acknowledges that it has happened. The Fraud Policy says, “Due to the predictability of human behavior it is inevitable that people will (like they already have) use this potentially life saving resource to hurt others for any number of personal reasons by posting false information on this site.“
Removing a name from the database is solely at Sullivan’s discretion. And he admits the site runs on a guilty-until-proven-innocent method. “I feel the government should have been doing this years ago,“ he says.
To be taken off the list, Sullivan requires written test results from a doctor. “Have your doctor send your clean test results in an official sealed envelope,“ says the site’s Fraud Policy. It lists a Portland, Oregon, Post Office box as an address and says, in October 2009, it will be switching to a “non-USPS box service that forwards mail.“
.
About My Health: Staying Healthy