Eliminalia (rebranded as 'Idata Protection' in January 2023 ) is a Spanish company specialized in

reputation management Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation managem ...

. It was founded in 2011 by Diego Sánchez, known as Dídac Sánchez. The technical offices are in

Kyiv, Ukraine Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

. Eliminalia is property of Maidan Holdings, a Miami-based holding company. In 2015, Eliminalia offered its services without charge to anyone affected by the

Ashley Madison data breach In July 2015, a group calling itself "The Impact Team" stole the user data of Ashley Madison, a commercial website billed as enabling extramarital affairs. The group copied personal information about the site's user base and threatened to releas ...

. In 2020, Eliminalia received several

vanity awards A vanity award is an award in which the recipient purchases the award and/or marketing services to give the false appearance of a legitimate honor. Pitches for ''Who's Who''-type publications (see vanity press), biographies or nominations for award ...

: ''Technology Innovator Awards 2020'' by

AI Global Media A.I. Global Media Limited (AI) is a British organiser of a range of vanity awards and publisher of online magazines. The winners of these awards are invited to purchase publicity in the company's online magazines, and other marketing material suc ...

and ''Cyber Security Company of the Year'' by Corporate LiveWire. In 2021, , an

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

dedicated to the defense of digital rights, accused Eliminalia of creating a network of fake websites with back-dated articles and then spamming them with legal

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...

takedown notices and

GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in partic ...

complaints. These were intended to take down articles referring to corruption in

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

regarding

Isabel dos Santos Isabel dos Santos (; born 20 April 1973) is an Angolan businesswoman, the eldest child of Angola's former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country as a dictator from 1979 to 2017. Once considered Africa's richest woman accordi ...

and Vincent Miclet.

Internal documents leak

In 2023, after a

news leak A news leak is the unsanctioned release of confidential information to news media. It can also be the premature publication of information by a news outlet, of information that it has agreed not to release before a specified time, in violation of ...

of approx. 50 000 internal documents to French nonprofit

Forbidden Stories Forbidden Stories is a non-profit organization with the mission "to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder." To achieve this, it allows journalists to send their work to Forbidden Stories, so other jou ...

, the company was accused of using ‘ blackhat tactics’ help clients in 50 countries, including torturers, convicted criminals, corrupt politicians, scammers and spyware companies to erase their past from the internet. Eliminalia allegedly uses an array of underhanded tactics to stifle criticism of its clients, from intimidating journalists to churning out

fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...

on websites such as 'Taiwan Times', 'Mayday Washington', 'CNN News Today', and 'London Uncensored' - all of which are connected to Maidan Holdings (Eliminalia's parent company). Using falsified

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

notices, the company manipulates “

right to be forgotten The right to be forgotten (RTBF) is the right to have private information about a person be removed from Internet searches and other directories under some circumstances. The concept has been discussed and put into practice in several jurisdiction ...

” laws, designed to protect people from malicious material online, by sending emails that appear to be from the European Commission to journalists and publishers of the unwanted articles. Two clients of Eliminalia are convicted drug traffickers; other clients included Venezuela officials, Malchas Tetruashvili (convicted of

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

for Georgian mafia boss

Tariel Oniani Tariel Oniani ( ka, ტარიელ ონიანი; born 1952) is a Georgian mafia boss and 'Thief in law'. He is reportedly a member of the "Kutaisi" criminal gang. Background and activity in Spain Born in the mining town of Tkibuli in ...

in 2019), José Mestré (convicted of cocaine trafficking in 2010), former bank officials at

Banca Privada d'Andorra Banca Privada d'Andorra (, BPA) was a bank in Andorra founded in 1957. History Banca Privada d'Andorra was created in 1957 under the name of Banca Cassany and began its activities in 1958. In 1993 Caixa Catalunya became a shareholder and the en ...

, as well as 'scammers, spyware companies, torturers, convicted criminals, corrupt politicians and others in the global underworld'. One has been charged with laundering money for a prostitution ring. Another sold U.S. equipment to the Syrian government. Three more are indicted for helping carry out a cryptocurrency scam that stole billions of dollars from investors. As of January 2023, it appears that Eliminalia has rebranded as 'Idata Protection'.

References

Companies of Spain 2011 establishments in Spain Reputation management companies {{Spain-company-stub