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Paulette Cooper is dishing on Scientology in the Big Apple today Jon Atack: Scientology's early history is something most members don't actually know >> Google helps Scientology billionaire Bob Duggan hide a dark family secret By Tony Ortega | June 13, 2015 Bob_Duggan_illoRecently, we told you that California pharmaceuticals entrepreneur Bob Duggan -- a man currently worth $2.3 billion -- had, through an agent, complained to Google about a story we wrote about him. Duggan didn't complain directly to us, but then he must have known that the facts in the story we wrote are rock solid. We relied on first-hand accounts, court records, and photographic evidence to show that in 2013, at the same time that Duggan and his wife, Trish, were propping up failing Scientology facilities in South Africa with large donations, two of their six adopted children suddenly showed up in that country, and were being cared for by South African Scientology families. It suggested a bizarre trade deal -- Duggan largesse saved Scientology buildings while two of their children were taken off their hands -- and yet, despite those bizarre allegations, everything about the story was nailed down tighter than John Travolta's hairpiece. We titled it "A perplexing tale about Bob Duggan, the richest Scientologist in the world," and published it on October 15. It proved to be one of our most popular stories of the year, as well as probably the one that took the most work (including long Skype calls to Johannesburg). It proved so popular, that it soon became the number one result on a Google search of Bob Duggan's name... Advertisement [INS::INS] BobDugganSearch We first noticed that our story was topping Google about the time, in April, that an eagle-eyed reader notified us about the complaint filed by Duggan's agent, which was memorialized on the Chilling Effects website . Duggan was clearly unhappy that the most popular online item in the world associated with his name was our story about his strange transfer of his adopted boys to South Africa. But rather than send us a threat letter he instead went straight to Google. What he did, through his agent, Matt Archambault, was to complain to Google not about the facts in the story, but about the images that we'd used to illustrate it -- only two of which he had any ownership claim over. Specifically, Duggan filed a complaint under the DMCA -- a "takedown notice" -- for six of the images in the story. The first was a headshot of Duggan that came from his own website. Duggan also complained about a photo of his wife Trish that came from her website; a collage of photos from Scientology's Impact magazine which featured him and Trish accepting trophies from Scientology leader David Miscavige; a photo from Scientology's website showing the grand opening of the Pretoria Ideal Org in 2013; a photo of Robin Hogarth from Robin's own Facebook page; and a photo of Robin, his wife Carol, and their (formerly Bob's) son, from Carol's Facebook page. In each case, we had been careful to point out in our story where each image had come from, and that in each case the subjects in the photos had posted the items themselves. We wanted readers to know exactly where we had obtained them. (Another photo in the story, showing Carol Hogarth and the blurred-out boy, was taken by Carol's sister Shelley Ashurst, who gave us the photo with her permission.) Why did Duggan care that, for example, we'd used a generic promotional photo from the Scientology website about the opening of its Pretoria org? Well, it was pretty obvious to us what he was doing: He wanted Google to punish us for supposed copyright violations by de-indexing our story, making it more difficult for people to find. We noticed the complaint about ten days after it had been filed. We hoped that was soon enough that our idea for a remedy might be in time -- we asked Oregon cartoonist Chad Essley to create illustrations that we could use to replace the photos that Duggan was complaining about. Essley came through quickly, and we then announced our clever ploy once we had the new images in place. Apparently, however, our effort to switch out the images didn't happen in time, or Google just ignored it, because we noticed this week that our story has indeed been de-indexed and no longer shows up when you search on Bob's name... BobDugganSearch2 Not only is it no longer a top search result, but even if you search on the words "bob duggan perplexing," you get an alternative URL to the story and not the original URL it was posted under. As far as we can tell, Google has done its best to bury our story. On behalf of a billionaire. Who made his kids disappear. And again, Google did this after we had addressed the issues listed in Bob's complaint -- we had removed the images that Duggan pretended he was concerned about. Did Google even bother to check whether the images Duggan complained about were still in the piece? Does it matter now? Would they respond to an "appeal" of some sort? Our experts tell us trying to get through to Google and convince it to explain itself is about as quixotic a task as there is in this Internet age. So we decided rather than go begging to Google we would write this story, and let our readers know what kind of interference the search giant is running for a billionaire like Duggan. And, if our readers read, link to, tweet, Facebook, and share this Search story to as many people as they can, it might [ ] [magnifier2] just rise up on Google's SUPPORT THE search results, and help UNDERGROUND BUNKER direct people to our You can either make a one-time donation to original story. At least the site via Paypal... that's the theory. We'll * see. PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online! * ------------- ...or you can subscribe and get billed monthly: Tampa Bay Rays the [$3 / Month : $3.00 USD - monthly ] latest to help * Scientology's front groups PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online! * Hey, you have a few more FOLLOW ME ON [ico] [ico] days to order your [amazon-ref]* Rays-Red Sox tickets to SUBSCRIBE TO OUR help raise money for E-MAIL LIST Scientology's front To join our e-mail list & get daily updates group, Foundation for a on new stories, e-mail us at Drug-Free World... newstory@tonyortega.org. RSS Feed Click here to add The Underground Bunker to RaysFlier your RSS Reader Categories ------------- Categories Miss Lovely on parade [Select Category ] [INS::INS][INS::INS] Ah, the Hotel Martinique, where Paulette Cooper began her exploration into L. Ron Hubbard's wacky cabal! Martinique Guggenheim CentralPark Scientology hills Selena ------------- Bonus photos from our tipsters Become a trained Scientologist, and you'll attract all the birds in London! SciLondon3 Or pass out The Way to Happiness, and attract all the chicas en Venezuela! SciVenezuela Things are awesome at the Hsian mission in Taiwan... SciHsian Open mic night in Stevens Creek -- and stay after for the regging! SciStevensCreek2 Why hang on to that old copy of Dianetics with all the confusing semicolons? Trade it in for the new model! SciSouthTexas2 To celebrate the new Editora Ponte do Brasil bookstore in Sao Paulo, a TV interview! What a scoop! "Tell me, how many authors do you carry?" "Just the one!" SciBrazil ------------- BOOK NOTES 3D-Unbreakable We didn't get a chance to include photos in our book, so we've posted them at a dedicated page . Reader Sookie put together an index for The Unbreakable Miss Lovely and we're hosting it here on the website. Copies of the paperback version of 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely' are on sale at Amazon. The Kindle edition is also available, and shipping instantly. Our upcoming appearances (and check out the interactive map to our ongoing tour)... June 20: Chicago (with Christian Stolte) The Annoyance Theater, 5pm: This event is SOLD OUT. June 22: Toronto (with Paulette Cooper) Toronto Public Library, 40 Orchard View Blvd, 7:30 pm, sponsored by the Centre for Inquiry-Canada June 23: Toronto (with Paulette Cooper) The "Getting Clear" conference June 28: Clearwater, Florida (with Paulette Cooper) Clearwater Public Library, 2 pm, sponsored by Center for Inquiry-Tampa Bay July 12: Washington DC, Center for Inquiry (with Paulette Cooper) July 14: Hartford, MARK TWAIN HOUSE (with Tom Tomorrow) July 17: Denver, The Secular Hub, 7 pm (with Chris Shelton) July 20: Dallas, Times Ten Cellar, 7 pm (with Robert Wilonsky) July 22: Houston July 24: San Antonio July 25: Austin July 29: Paris (with Jonny Jacobsen) August 4: London (with John Sweeney) August 24: Boston September 16: Arizona State University ------------- Posted by Tony Ortega on June 13, 2015 at 07:00 E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page. Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts... BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology's founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology's system of justice SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts PZ Myers reads L. 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Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark "Marty" Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield Share Button Print Friendly, PDF & Email June 13th, 2015 | Category: Bob Duggan ADVERTISEMENT [INS::INS] Keep Reading * COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE TRIAL OF DANNY MASTERSON * Tom Cruise's Scientology Superpowers, No. 1 * Scientology's Sneaky Front Groups * The Top 25 People Enabling Scientology * Scientology celebrities, from A to Z! * The Valerie Haney interview: Scientology smear tactics, and where Shelly Miscavige is * The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2020 Copyright (c) 2022 Tony Ortega | All Rights Reserved | Site Design SP | RSS Feed | Contact Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa .