Criminal Defense for Internet Stalking or Cyber Stalking

Cyberstalking is Illegal

Cyber stalking consists of stalking, harassing, sending insulting or defamatory emails, or even computer hacking a victim.

Cyberstalkers often target their victims through social media platforms such as Facebook. Cyberstalking also includes electronic viruses and unsolicited e-mails. Victims of cyberstalking may not even know that they are being stalked. Cyberstalkers may search for victims via Google or background checking sites in order to feed their obsessions and curiosity. However when cyberstalking threatens or harasses someone, it is then illegal. 

Cyberstalkers often post defamatory or derogatory statements about the victim on the internet for public view. Often this behavior is designed to get a reaction from their victim, thereby initiating contact. In many cases, cyberstalkers have even to created fake blogs containing defamatory or pornographic content, posing as the victim.

Cyberstalking is illegal and can be prosecuted. Even though the harassment is done indirectly, it is still harassment. Often cyberstalkers will even trace the victim’s IP address to find the person’s home or place of work.  

Sometimes cyberstalking evolves into physical stalking whereby the victim is subjected to  crank phone calls, vandalism, threatening or obscene mail, trespassing, and physical assault. Moreover, many physical stalkers will use cyberstalking as another method of harassing their victims.

"A 2007 study, led by Paige Padgett from the University of Texas Health Science Center, found that there was a false degree of safety assumed by women looking for love online. Cyberstalkers find their victims by using search engines, forums, chats, and more recently, through social networking sites."