IR LECLAIRRYAN December 6, 2017 VIA CERTIFIED MAIL Bennett Kelley ‘The Internet Law Center INTERNET LAW CENTER 100 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 700 Santa Monica, CA 90401 Re: Document Preservation Dear Mr. Kelley: This law firm represents Xcentrie Ventures LLC (Xcenttic). The purpose of this letter is to clarify your document preservation responsibilities related to a legal dispute and litigation that is in the pre-complaint stage The dispute involves anti-competitive business practices and a conspiracy to damage the business of Xcentric in its operations of the RipoffReport.com website and related services to consumers, the public, and businesses. The conspiracy and anti-competitive actions include but are not limited to: disparagement, harassment, and intimidation of Xcentrie’s operations, employees, associates, customers, or potential customers, including defamation and false light; lawsuits conducted for illegal purposes including intimidation, harassment, oppression, and suppression of civil rights with illegal methods including negligent o reckless or intentional disregard for truth; malicious prosecution; abuse of process: deceptive trade practices; copyright infringement; computer hacking; fraud; extortion; and other illegal or unethical actions to damage Xeentric’s business; any lawsuits against Xcentric; any lawsuit support activities regarding lawsuits against Xcentrie; any lawsuits or lawsuit support activities related to alleged defamations posted on RipoffReport.com URLS; any client services in the category of “reputation management” involving attempts at suppression of ripoffreport.com URLs or content in search engine returns: any social media communications regarding RipoffReport.com or its content, Xcentric, or Xcentric’s employees, agents. vendors, customers or potential customers, Hereafter this dispute is referenced as the “Dispute.” Based on our investigation, it appears that you possess information relevant to Xcentrie, the Dispute and its component subject matter, the conspirators, and your conduct involving Xcentric and the Dispute. TORNEYS AT LAW \ WWW.LECLAIRRYAN.CAs required by law, you have an affirmative duty to take reasonable steps to preserve all records, including outgoing and incoming e-mail messages with others concerning Xeentrie and the subject matter of the Dispute which may be relevant to the Dispute described above. Records, documents and ESI that may be potentially relevant to this Dispute include, but are not limited to, those relating to: (1) communications including electronic communications to or from you or any other person or entity or third party related to Xcentrie and the Dispute (2) ‘communications including electronic commisnications to or from other parties related to the subject matter of the Dispute. For the purpose of clarity. potentially relevant records, documents and ESI encompasses a broad range of information including paper documents, as well as information stored electronically. The term “document” also insludes ony and all copies of any document that contains any notation or otherwise differs fiom the orig nal and other copies, and specifically includes any and all drafts or edits of the above, and any and all handwritten notes or notations in whatever form together with any attachments to any such documents. The term “document” expressly includes all computer records and items incorporated in an electronic database of any ind, including hard drives. compact disks, floppy disks, removable drives and magnetic tapes of any other media Relevant materials in the following locations could be subject to discovery and, therefore, must be preserved by you: (1) E-mail messages and attachments, wherever they are stored (including messages in “Deleted Items” and “Sent Item: folders, in “Archives” or PST files, in E-mail Server Stores, and — to the extent those message are not stored anywhere else andor in any e-mail account(s). including personal accounts ~ in any Blackberry, Android device, iPhone, iPad, or other personal digital assistant); (2} Word Proce: sing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, whether stored locally on a desktop or laptop computer, in a shared folder, on a network drive, or in any other locations on the network. or in cloud storage; (3) information copied to CDs. DVDs. or removable drives (such as “flash” drives or “thumb” drives); (4) photographs and video recordings and audio recordings including voicemail; (5) text messages; (6) phone call logs on electronic communication devices such as mobile phones or in phone bills: (7) social media communications such as Twitter tweets. facebook postings and Facebook messenger messages, (8) information stored on any former computer systems or other media devices no longer in use; and (6) information retained on any backup media Its particularly important for you to preserve any communications with, between, or among any of the following individuals, categories of individuals, and entities: Ben Smith, County Attomey, Sac County lowa, and all employees of that office. Doctor John Pitman or Peninsula Plastic Surgery John F Brewington, Paladin Investigations ‘Shawn Richeson, ClickANerd, Michael Roberts, Rexxfeild, Pagel me,Janice Duty The Smith Law Center, and/or any of its attorneys or agents Seth D Scott Esq Stanley & Houchens, LLC, and/or any of its attorneys or agents Dr. Scott Connelly Darren Meade Bennett Kelly, Esq ‘These lists of potentially relevant records and possible locations of ESI are not all- inclusive. They only represent our best initial assessment at this time of what categories of information might be relevant and where the documents might be located. You must interpret this list broadly and err on the side of preservation. If you possess other materials not included in this list that may be relevant to this dispute, they also should be preserved. The law recognizes a duty to preserve evidence even in pre-litigation circumstances. A pre-litigation evidence preservation letter is not necessary to trigger the duty to preserve evidence. ‘The failure to preserve evidence in circumstances where preservation is required, however, could lead a court or administrative body to sanction a company or individual for their conduct. You should consult your lawyer about the scope of your preservation duty. Although the duty to preserve evidence exists independently of any pre-litigation notice, this letter shall provide additional detail to assist you in fulfilling your preservation obligations, but shall not limit those duties. You must also ensure that such preservation does not employ methods to preserve ESI that removes or degrades the ability to search the ESI by electronic means or that makes it difficult or burdensome to address or use the information, ESI should be preserved in the format in which itis ordinarily maintained (i.c., native form). As hard copies do not preserve electronic searchability or metadata, they are not an adequate substitute for, or cumulative of, electronically stored versions. If information exists in both electronic and paper forms, you should preserve both forms, Adequate preservation of ESI requires more than simply refraining from efforts to destroy or dispose of such evidence. To that end, with respect to your preservation obligations, features of information systems. devices, and standard operating procedures that, in routine operation, operate to cause the loss of potentially relevant and/or discoverable evidence must be immediately identified, and modified or suspended. Examples include: (1) purging the content of email repositories by age, capacity, or other criteria; (2) using data or media wiping, disposal, erasure, or encryption utilities or devices; (3) overriding, erasing, destroying, or discarding backup me (4) reassigning, reimaging. or disposing of systems, servers, devices. or media: (5) running anti-virus or other programs affecting wholesale metadata alteration; (6) releasing or purchasing online storage repositories; (7) using metadata tripper utilities; (8) disabling server,packet or local instant messaging logging; or (9) executing driver or file defragmentation or compression programs Moreover, you should take affirmative steps to ensure that any others who have access to your systems, archives, files, computers, devices, social media accounts, cloud storage accounts, or e-mail accounts understand these preservation requirements and refrain from modifying, destroying, or hiding any potentially relevant ESI during the time this litigation hold is in effect. For this reason I am copying others My clients take these preservation obligations very seriously. We expect you to do the same. Should you fail to preserve potentially relevant evidence, or should such evidence be destroyed. lost or corrupted as a result of your delay or failure to uphold their preservation responsibilities, our clients may be entitled to judicial relief. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, Sincerely, Pf David A. Warrington Attorney at Law