What happens in Vegas … goes on the Web

Randy Shereda, 50, was driving home from his job as a transportation security supervisor. Suddenly, a pickup truck cut off his Chrysler LeBaron from the right, using the Spring Mountain Road exit lane on northbound Interstate 15.

Not long ago, all Shereda could do was add the motorist to his list of least-favorite people. Now, he adds a license plate to a long list at platewire.com, along with a description of the traffic transgression.

"How lucky can a guy get?" Shereda writes. "Imagine having your own personal passing lane!"

It's not only traffic scofflaws being outed on the Internet. Bad parkers (caughtya.org), litterbugs (litterbutt.com) and negligent nannies (isawyour nanny.blogspot.com) also are feeling heat from a spate of new tattletale Web sites that give frustrated citizens the ability to report anti-social behavior in public places.

"This is potentially good because it provides another means of enforcement of some of these laws that aren't formally enforced by police and others," says Robert Futrell, sociology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"And it could also work, in some perhaps very rare instances, as a scarlet letter, so that others can see who the rule-breakers are." (A scarlet-colored "A," for adultery, was worn by the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, "The Scarlet Letter.")

Shereda, who read about platewire.com in a Review-Journal column by Omar Sofradzija, describes it simply as "a way to relieve your frustrations." Driving in Las Vegas has gotten so bad, the former truck driver says, that he carries a clipboard to work each day.

"My boss looks at me kind of crazy because there always are plate numbers scribbled on there," he says. "He's too afraid to ask."

Some tattletale sites publish photos of the alleged offenses, some don't.

"When I originally started, I asked for pictures, but then I realized that's not a good idea to post a picture of someone's child," says the founder of isawyournanny.blogspot. com, who asked that her real name not be published.

The Westchester, N.Y., resident edits her posts to remove all names -- leaving only descriptions of age, clothing and ethnicity.

"It's intentionally vague so we don't out people," she says, "because we can't verify whether it's true or not."

Occupying the other end of the spectrum is www.dontdatehimgirl.com, which publishes photos, names and embarrassingly detailed descriptions of allegedly bad boyfriends. (Yet, like all the sites mentioned in this article, it hides the identity of the posters.)

"Watch out, ladies," reads one recent post about a Las Vegas drugstore clerk. "He is always chatting with other women when he is online with you, but will tell you that he is paying bills or looking for a new job."

The post lists the man's full name, age and workplace.

It continues: "He doesn't own a car, so you will have to do all the driving, and he is a broke brother."

Public shaming is nothing new. The tool was used liberally by local governments in the 18th century, when wrongdoers were sent to the town square's stockade.

The trend grew its current legs in 2005, after a famous New York restaurateur made headlines for exposing himself on the subway to a woman who took his picture on her cell phone camera and posted it on craigslist.org.

"I created my site to give folks a place to share their stories of rude behavior that they've observed or experienced personally," says Fred, the New Zealand-based founder of caughtya.org, who asked that we not print his last name. (The operators of sites that expose people are ironically private about revealing their own personal information.)

"I did this with the hope that people could learn a bit more about themselves and society and maybe make the world a bit less rude in the process," Fred says.

Many observers doubt the public good being accomplished by these sites.

"Is it going to change behavior?" asks Rob Correales, a professor at William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV. "I don't think so. It's probably not an effective tool.

"Who's even going to know that they were posted?"

In Nevada, license plates can be run only by officers of the law. So the only shame drivers can feel from caughtya.org or platewire.com is if they happen to be surfing the sites themselves (unless they have identifying personalized plates).

"I don't know that you can ever tell the effect without sophisticated tools," Correales says.

Still, all the Web site operators claim the trend is significantly deterring offensive behavior.

"I've heard about nannies saying, 'I don't want to appear on that blog,' " says isawyournanny.blogspot. com's founder. "Just as a nanny who thinks her employer has a nanny-cam in the house might act differently, they act differently in the park now that they worry about us."

On the other hand, many of these sites clearly can do harm -- because posters can make any kind of claim they want.

On June 29, 2006, Todd Hollis of Pittsburgh filed a $350,000 defamation suit against the owners of dontdatehimgirl.com for publishing a post claiming that he had herpes and was gay.

"If people are telling the truth, they are naturally shielded from defamation lawsuits," Correales says, "but if it's beyond the threshold of defamation, then they've got problems."

Hollis' case is pending.

Mark Buckman, platewire.com's founder, says he removes all reports from his site when the subjects complain. (So far, the complaint count is three out of thousands.) He also says he's implementing a new system to rank the credibility of each poster.

"Right now, I just have a valid e-mail address," he says. "But I'm eventually going to be able to identify that person completely -- whether it's by credit-card authorization or other methods.

"Not that it's legally binding," he adds, "but if you make a statement on here, the higher level of validity is going to force people to be more honest and truthful."