In June 2020 – just 3 months before I left Ontario – I wrote an email that still stands as a snapshot of who I was at that moment: cornered, exhausted, and trying to navigate a system that offered no real protection when someone else published my personal information online.
It was this email I received that made me more determined to leave Ontario ASAP, COVID pandemic or not, as I was truly scared for my personal safety.
My first thought upon getting this email was how hypocritical they were being. I couldn’t believe it, to be honest. They thought it was okay for them to share my picture, emails, legal documents, and addresses online in various domains they made, including one in my name, but they were having a fit when I did the same. To me that showed me just how toxic they really were!
The email thread was simple on the surface: a demand that I remove personal identifying information (PII) from my domain, koryread.ca (I had at the time), paired with my response explaining why that information was there in the first place. I got the email from my own hosting provider.
Note: I had koryread.ca content online for less than a year, as it was registered in April 2020. When I moved to Newfoundland in September 2020, I deleted all the content as I had hoped to ignore it all and let the domain expire. As of September 2025, the toxic tenants registered the domain for themselves, and it has had no content.
But underneath it was a much bigger story about power, retaliation, and the impossible position survivors are put in when they try to defend themselves online.
What That Email Revealed About the Reality of PII Removal in 2020
Back then, hosting companies operated under a rigid, almost mechanical policy: PII stays online unless you produce a court order from the country the site is hosted in.
It didn’t matter if the information was malicious. It didn’t matter if it was part of a smear campaign. It didn’t matter if it put someone at risk.
If you couldn’t afford a lawyer, couldn’t navigate a foreign legal system, or couldn’t physically travel to another country to file paperwork, you were simply out of luck.
That was the position I was in. And that’s why my 2020 email reads the way it does – firm, defensive, and shaped by the reality that the only leverage I had was reciprocity.
“Quid pro quo,” I wrote. You take down your sites, and I’ll take down mine.
It wasn’t who I was. It wasn’t how I wanted to operate. But it was the only tool available to me in a system that offered no meaningful recourse.
How Hosting Companies Have Changed Since Then
The landscape looks very different now. I am grateful that policies have changed since then, with more to come in the future. I have no problem abiding by the rules…
Between 2020 and today, hosting companies have dramatically tightened their policies around PII, harassment, and doxxing. Many now:
- Treat malicious PII as a form of abuse
- Remove content without requiring a court order
- Offer streamlined reporting tools
- Recognize patterns of harassment and coordinated online attacks
- Enforce stricter identity and content verification
In other words, the burden is no longer entirely on the victim to navigate an international legal maze just to get their own phone number or home address removed from a stranger’s website. Unless it is hosted in a “free speech” country like Iceland…I expect that to change one day as well.
If these policies had existed in 2017–2020, my entire experience would have unfolded differently.
How My Site Has Evolved Since That Email
When I wrote that email, my site existed for one reason: to document a smear campaign and protect myself.
It was a shield. A record. A way to counter the narrative being built about me online.
But over time – especially after leaving Ontario and gaining distance from the chaos – my new site, now under my own name, not theirs, transformed into something much larger and more meaningful.
From Defence to Education
I began writing not just about what happened to me, but about:
- toxic behaviour
- manipulation tactics
- gaslighting
- online harassment
- patterns of abuse
- the psychology behind smear campaigns
- the systems that fail survivors
My personal experience became a lens for understanding broader dynamics that affect countless people.
From Survival to Clarity
The early content, like what I had on koryread.ca, was written from a place of survival. The newer content is written from a place of clarity.
I’m no longer reacting. I’m analyzing. I’m teaching. I’m connecting dots that I couldn’t see when I was in the middle of it.
From One Story to a Wider Conversation
My site is no longer just about what happened to me. It’s about what I learned because of what happened to me.
It’s about giving language to experiences that people often struggle to articulate. It’s about showing how toxic behaviour operates – online, offline, and in the systems meant to protect us. It’s about reclaiming the narrative and turning it into something constructive.
Why I Still Share These Old Emails
Emails like the one from June 2020 matter because they show the evolution:
- of my understanding
- of the digital landscape
- of how survivors are treated
- of how my own voice has changed
They’re artifacts of a time when I was forced into a defensive posture just to protect myself. They remind me how far I’ve come – and how much the online world has changed since then.
And they help others see the systemic gaps that still exist, even with improved policies.
That 2020 email was written by someone fighting to be heard, fighting to be safe, and fighting to be believed.
The person writing today is someone who has reclaimed her voice, her autonomy, and her purpose.
My site is no longer a shield. It’s a resource. A record. A place of clarity, not crisis. I learned I don’t need to share PII of my abusers anymore; they know who they are and what they have done. That is enough.
And sharing these pieces of the past isn’t about rehashing old wounds – it’s about showing the path from confusion to understanding, from chaos to coherence, and from survival to empowerment.
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Jun 8, 2020, 12:07 PM
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Mr. R,
Please note that all PII, actually the complete content, will be removed when all domains of www.stellareddy.com, www.859kennedyroad.com, www.davidstrashin.com, www.sjtomemberkevinlundy.com, and www.sjtomembervandanapatel.com are completely removed from the internet, and you provide proof of this action in writing from the domain companies and hosting companies that they are cancelled, and I will do the same. I have requested this numerous times, but these sites still remain online. Quid pro quo, as they say. You have PII online about me, so I have PII online about you. Take your sites down, and I will do the same.
This is not in my personality, as I hate having so much private info online. I have no trouble admitting that, but I have reached my limit and had enough. I am not willing to sit back and just accept your smearing of my character in these sites online anymore. I am willing to post everything I have so people can make up their own minds about it all, not be influenced by my personal opinions. I am also sick of the target you have placed on my back with these websites. I made this site as evidence of your smearing in case anything happens to me, any of my family members, the property here, or any other tenant living here from the content on your websites. I have been informed that with the content you share, you are instigating actions against us, and I need evidence of it. This is it.
I refuse to give in to hypocrites. As I have been informed many times by your hosting companies, all PII will remain until ” the complaining party return with a Court Order or similar escalated documentation” to have the PII removed or the domain taken down. As per my research, emails with my own company I use for this site, and various emails I have received from your companies you have used over the years for these domains, this is the process. So, unless you can go to the United States and file for a Court Order in their court system, the content will remain until all domains involved in the Smear Campaign and Cyberbullying of me, as noted above, and others are removed. Quid pro quo.
Any way you twist it, Mr., this site koryread.ca was made and posted for the defence of the Smear Campaign and Cyberbullying of Stella Reddy and others online, as it clearly states in the content. It would not be there if these domains you posted were not online, and it clearly states that as well.
It is completely up to you what happens next, and I leave it completely in your hands.
Thank you,
Stella Reddy
<———- Forwarded ———->
From: k
Hello, Stella Reddy is using the website koryread.ca to display mine and my wife’s Personally Identifiable Information ( PII ). Personally identifiable information
(PII) is information that, when used alone or with other relevant data, can identify an individual.
1 – She is displaying our photo which she has no permission to use on her website under my name.
2- Legal documents that we used in legal proceedings and were not intend for public use.
3 – Displaying our personal email address that were obtained only during legal proceedings.
4- Pour personal phone numbers.
5 -By placing our full names on her site which in connection with the above information violates our rights to having no Personally Identifiable Information on the web.
Please have this information removed.
Thank you for your help in advance.
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