''PlainSite'' is a US based website dedicated to legal data transparency advocacy developed in conjunction by Think Computer Corporation and the charitable organization Think Computer Foundation. PlainSite provides both free and paid access to

legal documents Legal instrument is a legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation, or ...

and information about the US legal system on a variety of subjects and caselaw. The website previously collected legal documents via the

Free Law Project Free Law Project is a United States federal 501(c)(3) an Oakland-based nonprofit that provides free access to primary legal materials, develops legal research tools, and supports academic research on legal corpora. Free Law Project has severa ...

's RECAP archive until the archive adopted a fee-based approach. PlainSite on occasion publishes a report called Reality Check in which each edition focuses on a particular company and details allegations and controversies surrounding it. In the report on Credit Acceptance, the authors "questioned the health of the company and the quality of the loans backing their securities." In another edition concerning Facebook, the authors allege Facebook not only has approximately one billion fake accounts but that the company itself facilitates fake account creation in order to boost user metrics.

Controversies

While PlainSite archives extensive legal documentation and analysis concerning companies, it also has had its own controversial involvements in litigious matters concerning

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, Tesla, and

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...

specifically. In 2012, PlainSite published a list of 2,000 suspected

patent troll In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or ...

s assembled from records available via the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

's patents database. Later, a man convicted in 2013 of conspiring to commit

mortgage fraud Mortgage fraud refers to an intentional misstatement, misrepresentation, or omission of information relied upon by an underwriter or lender to fund, purchase, or insure a loan secured by real property. Criminal offenses may be prosecuted in eith ...

unsuccessfully attempted to delist PlainSite along with other legal and government-controlled websites from Google's index for hosting legal documents pertaining to him.

Tesla

PlainSite's republishing of unsealed documents regarding Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity was noted by multiple publications, as well as a published email exchange between Elon Musk and Greenspan regarding Randeep Hothi. In March 2021, PlainSite uncovered DMV records showing that Tesla considers its Full Self-Driving technology to currently be non-autonomous. In May 2021, PlainSite released a memo in which Tesla's director of Autopilot software told the California DMV that Musk has been overstating Autopilot's capabilities, saying "Elon’s tweet does not match engineering reality". Greenspan has disclosed his ownership of

put option In finance, a put or put option is a derivative instrument in financial markets that gives the holder (i.e. the purchaser of the put option) the right to sell an asset (the ''underlying''), at a specified price (the ''strike''), by (or at) a s ...

s against Tesla's stock. In March 2021, PlainSite published FOIA documents indicating conglomerate

Softbank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

was under "active investigation by the

Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

References

External links

* * {{Twitter, PlainSite
Video of Aaron Greenspan presenting PlainSite to the Bay Area Legal Tech Meetup
Legal websites Internet properties established in 2011 Online legal services Case law databases Online law databases