Mug shot publishing industry
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The mug shot publishing industry is a niche market of tabloid journalism emerging in the United States. The industry consists of private companies that publish mug shots and booking details of individuals arrested by law enforcement agencies. These companies publish the arrest information in tabloids and through websites. More than 60 new mug shot websites were created in the two-year period ending March 2013. The related mugshot removal services, at least one of which calls itself part of the reputation management industry, profit when individuals pay a fee to have their mugshot removed from one or more websites. The two types of business are sometimes operated by the same company resulting in a combination business model which Kashmir Hill, writing for Forbes calls the "embarrassment extortion industry," and David Kravets, writing for Wired refers to as a racket. Some legal experts say that while it is "close to extortion," it is a legal business model.
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