Slashdot Mirror

Reminds me of Jabba the H... er, Parry Aftab, a self-proclaimed "privacy lawyer" who can help you manage cybercrime risks.

The lawyer quoted in the article, Parry Aftab, isn't she the infamous Aftab who (was said to have) harassed Katie Jones of Katie.com?

From the article "...if the agreement is incomprehensible, it may be unenforceable, according to Aftab."

Personally i wouldn't trust Ms. Aftab to sit the right way on a toilet. Let alone give sound legal advice.

Oh, and down with software patents and Linux rules n all that.

Parry Aftab, the angel of the Internet!! <drumroll/>

g00gleb0mb:
Jabba the lawyer

this is such an awesome idea. googlebomb her! Jabba the Layer!!!

cupcake addiction

It doesn't work without the hyperlink, like so: Jabba the Lawyer

Is that how you googlebomb Jabba the Lawyer ? Just posting Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage? Seems kind of easy to post Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage. I'll have to try posting Jabba the Lawyer on some websites.

Is that how you googlebomb Jabba the Lawyer ? Just posting Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage? Seems kind of easy to post Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage. I'll have to try posting Jabba the Lawyer on some websites.

Is that how you googlebomb Jabba the Lawyer ? Just posting Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage? Seems kind of easy to post Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage. I'll have to try posting Jabba the Lawyer on some websites.

Is that how you googlebomb Jabba the Lawyer ? Just posting Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage? Seems kind of easy to post Jabba the Lawyer on a webpage. I'll have to try posting Jabba the Lawyer on some websites.

Jabber the Lawyer

You are entitled to £10000 (or whatever) of perks per year. Choose from the following list:
Company car: annual value £5000
Free food: annual value £4000
Notebook computer: annual value £300
etc etc etc

This still enables the companies to get their bulk discounts etc, making perks cheaper than extra salary. Further, it would mean employees get what they WANT from their perks, and feel happy about their employer being honest with them. (Yes, there are obvious holes here, but how is it as a basic premise?)

Googlebomb: Jabba the Lawyer

I don't mean to be insensitive to the topic of child abuse, but I have nagging suspicion that all the discussion about this book borders on pandering to people's fears. I've heard that statistics say most abused children are more likely to be abused by someone they know rather than complete strangers. The media has a tendency to propagate fear of the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

I can't find a link to information on it, but I recall seeing a report on how statistics proved that the topic of deaths from the drug ecstasy was exhaggerated in the UK media, when they were actually rare and paled in comparison to something that resulted in many more deaths; falling in the shower! Yet no mention was made of this in the media, nor were there any measures taken to do things like enforce safer shower designs. Ecstasy was just more eye-catching as a news item.

The author of the book, Katie Tarbox seems to be turning this into a career- she actually has a company, Katie Tarbox, Inc., and even plans to launch a school curriculum. Her lawyer, Parry Aftab, seems to be revelling in the spotlight, touting herself as "The Angel of the Internet" and boasting about her media appearances; "She regularly appears on national and international television, in national, international and regional news publications and in both business and mass market publications around the world. She has been featured in Readers Digest, People Magazine, TV Guide, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Biography Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Seventeen, Family Circle and Ladies Home Journal, among others". Yet this is the very same woman who called Katie Jones, the owner of the Katie.com domain name and threatened that "things would only get worse" if she didn't freely hand over the domain name- and Jones had just given birth only a week before. The lawyer also spread defamatory remarks about Jones, claiming that Jones had a hidden agenda. Tarbox claims that Aftab doesn't represent her but represents her publisher, Penguin, yet there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.

All this media hype, aggressive legal action, PR damage control, and not to mention incorporation, all have the trademark characteristics of a profitable business. If this was an effort focused more on social change and education, the controversies surrounding the book would have been resolved long ago rather than having escalated to this point. There is always the danger of children coming into contact with pedophiles through the internet, but how does this statistically compare to things like the murder rate for children? What about the institutionalised rapes of women in Somalia? Why focus on this topic? Is it about reality, or is it more about pandering to the tabloid psyche?

She has been called "The Angel of the Internet"

The power of the internet!!
where we can be anything we want!

--god

Krispy Kreme?

After looking at the pictures she has posted of herself, I'm not at all amused. Honesty is an uncommon trait in a lawyer, let alone a fat lawyer.

An honest lawyer? I'm not amused, I'm amazed. And shocked. Yes, shocked, I say! What's the world coming to, when fat lawyers start telling the truth?

After looking at the pictures she has posted of herself, I'm not at all amused. Honesty is an uncommon trait in a lawyer, let alone a fat lawyer.

An honest lawyer? I'm not amused, I'm amazed. And shocked. Yes, shocked, I say! What's the world coming to, when fat lawyers start telling the truth?

Meanwhile Parry appears to be a self-styled Angel of the Internet which is little odd (from a UK perspective).

She may well be as described (she seems very busy and her aims are to be admired and she did make a good comment about the response of large firms to Y2K) but when someone starts describing themselves as an "Angel" (or acknowledges that other people calls one that) then there is something a little less than great about that (again, from a super-reticent UK perspective).

Though she might indeed be some sort of super-natural human much like the super-supports of one of her sites such as the Hulk and your friendly-neighbourhood-Spiderman.

Using Occam's Razor, the following scenario seems likely.

1) Penguin's legal team researches proposed names and replies that they wouldn't want to be associated with girl.com, but katie.com's content is inoffensive enough.

2) The author is told that 867-5309 set enough precedent that she could use the name as a separate entity.

3) As publicity builds up before a proposed tour using the name katie.com, the author attempts to engage legal counsel to acquire the domain.

4) A cyber-ambulance chaser gets in touch with her and is engaged. (Come on. Just look at this site.)

5) The geek world, while sympathetic to the author's original experience and book, cries 'Shenanigans!' to her lawyer's actions towards the current domain owner.

6) Penguin's legal staff decides that that negative fallout was becoming larger than their original risk estimates, and recommends a name change to settle things without admitting anything.

A publisher has great control over a book's title especially for unpublished authors (even Asimov had his titles changed early in his career), so I don't hold the author overly to blame for the original use. I also don't hold her to blame for wanting to acquire the name. She obviously could have chosen a better lawyer, but who knows how she made that choice.

The only thing I think the publisher is guilty of is underestimating the degree of problems usurping an existing domain name would cause. While it's obvious to us now, the book did come out in 2000 and the title may have been decided in 1999. At that time domain name legality was still all over the place, and it's more likely a combination of inexperience and ignorance then malevolence.

So, the only remaining question is: will Chubby Aftab apologize for the threats now, or wait until she's on O'Reilly next week?

Given her visible track record, I find it unlikely that she'll apologize to anyone for anything, because there's no money in that. This self-proclaimed angel of the internet ought to look a little closer to home and pause a moment to consider where potential visitors will wind up if they simply enter teenangels in their browser's address bar. If ever she does, I'll bet you that instead of admitting her mistake she'll go after the owner of teenangels.com.

No special formatting, fonts, graphics, images . . . sigh. Why pdf? Press release text and my comments below:

In an effort to avoid an association between the book originally titled Katie.com and the website Katie.com, Plume and the author decide to make this title change. New York, New York, August 6, 2004 ... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book called Katie.com by Katie Tarbox, an eye-opening account of one teenager's descent into the seductive world of the Internet.

Can't resist the plug ("eye opening" indeed.)

After the book was released into the market, it was brought to Dutton's attention that a website of the same name existed on the Internet.

Given that the original title "girl.com" was changed after they realized it was, at the time, a porn site I find it very hard to believe no one checked "katie.com" before release. I guess that sounds better than "We expected to bully katie.com away from Katie Jones, but all our efforts failed, including bringing out Jabba the Lawyer. Worse, the backlash was costing us ratings on Amazon.com. So we're backing down."

The fact that the book, Katie.com, and the website shared the same name was purely coincidental.

And very easy to check before release. Like they did with girl.com. Liars.

In an effort to avoid any association between the book and the site, when Plume issued the book in trade paperback in 2001, it printed on the copyright page that the author of Katie.com and events described in the book have no connection whatsoever with the website domain owner Katie Jones or her e-mail address.

Which means they knew this before release. Which means their previous statement that they didn't realize until after release is a lie.

Trena Keating, Editor-in-chief of Plume, said, "We have made every effort to clarify the fact that Plume's book, Katie.com, and the website, Katie.com, are not in any way associated with one another.

Yes, now they have finally made "every effort," which includes changing their book name.

In addition, it was erroneously reported recently that Plume had asked its attorney to attempt to buy the web site Katie.com from domain owner Katie Jones. This is absolutely not true. Ms. Jones confirms this point in a message currently posted on her web site.

I didn't hear that they wanted to buy it. I heard they tried to intimidate her into giving it to them. Big difference.

"We are not working in association with author Katie Tarbox or any other individual in an attempt to assume ownership of the domain name address www.katie.com. Of course, the personal views of the author are hers and do not represent Plume in any way. "Going forward, Plume and the author have decided to re-title this book A Girl's Life Online.

Great. Good job. Late, and chock full of spin and damage control, but good call.

This is an important book about predatory pedophiles on the Internet and how we can protect our children. We changed the title to keep focus on this issue. The newly titled book will be released next month.

More revenue opportunity! Everyone wins!

We have always taken this situation very seriously.

As evidenced by your ignoring it for 4 years?

And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just how dedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."

Oh yearh. It's clear. You're afraid of slashbots! har har har

#### Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children's trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick Warne, G.P. Putnam's Sons, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin Boo

Parry Aftab is a columnist for Information Week magazine (http://www.aftab.com/) ...wonder what would happen if thousands of Slashdotters cancelled their subscriptions and named her as the reason....hmmmmmm

Is anyone else amused by the fact that Parry compares herself to an elephant on her website?

-W

Fury of a 10,000 angry geeks diverted.

I'm very glad to hear this.

So, the only remaining question is: will Chubby Aftab apologize for the threats now, or wait until she's on O'Reilly next week?

I have to wonder what on earth she was thinking when she chose that photo. She has better ones on her webpage... why choose that unless you want to be associated with Jabba?

From Aftab's own site:

http://www.aftab.com/selling_management_on_prevent ion.htm

"How do you get anyone to buy your ideas or you products for that matter? You sell it...plain and simple, you build a pitch and keep working on it until you breakdown their resistance to the sale...."

"So how to you convince them...?"

"1. Fear. Two things always work when you're trying to sell something, fear, and greed. (We'll deal with greed next...) Research some good stories about how large companies (hopefully your competitors) have been hit with large penalties, law suits, public relations disasters, crippling systems failures or government investigations and shutdowns.

(We'll help by giving you some great examples...)"

"2. Greed..."

"3. Protect Your Butt."

"4. Protect Your Reputation. Your children and spouse are being interviewed by The National Enquirer, your parents have moved away and changed their names, your babysitter is selling an unauthorized biography of you...all because a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad litigation/investigation/incident occurred that could have been avoided."

"5. Keeping Up with the Jones's. All your competitors are using similar preventive measures to make sure that you are the competitor hit with the seven plagues."

Truly sickening in all this, in every way, is the lawyer Parry Aftab. I think a campaign to Google-bomb her site would be in order. Either google-bomb her name so that it links to the goatse guy or something like that (another poster suggested tubgirl), or attach a term like schyster-slut to her website (http://www.aftab.com/). (Slashdot the site, too.)

(In order to Google bomb, links are spread all through-out the WWW that link a particualr term to a particular site, eg: "schyster-slut" links to http://www.aftab.com/, ie: schyster-slut; or "Parry Aftab" links to the tubgirl site, ie: Parry Aftab. The more links are spread, the more this combination rates higher in Google, till it reaches the top spot, and the top result from Google for the search "schyster-slut" is Parry Aftab's website.)

Evidence for the merit of this attack can be had, if you missed it the first time around, from these posts:

here

here

here

Truly sickening in all this, in every way, is the lawyer Parry Aftab. I think a campaign to Google-bomb her site would be in order. Either google-bomb her name so that it links to the goatse guy or something like that (another poster suggested tubgirl), or attach a term like schyster-slut to her website (http://www.aftab.com/). (Slashdot the site, too.)

(In order to Google bomb, links are spread all through-out the WWW that link a particualr term to a particular site, eg: "schyster-slut" links to http://www.aftab.com/, ie: schyster-slut; or "Parry Aftab" links to the tubgirl site, ie: Parry Aftab. The more links are spread, the more this combination rates higher in Google, till it reaches the top spot, and the top result from Google for the search "schyster-slut" is Parry Aftab's website.)

Evidence for the merit of this attack can be had, if you missed it the first time around, from these posts:

here

here

here

This one takes the cake!

It looks like this one takes a lot of cake.

This isn't hugely important to the topic at hand but Parry Aftab calls herself "Parry Aftab, Esq." What's up with that? Maybe once she learns what esquire means she can start to learn what "I was here first" means. Idiot.

Anyone see this : For the amount of time and personal sacrifice Parry has devoted to making sure that everyone, especially children, can learn to use the Internet safely, privately and responsibly, Parry is often called the "Angel of the Internet.". Talk about cheesy, self promoting websites. This one takes the cake!

Oh, here's your answer. Mmmmm, informative.

Her name is an ANAGRAM of "A FAT B*"!

Take a look at her photo. This looks like someone who has never walked past a twinkie without stuffing it into her face. She called and harrassed Katie Jones a week after Jones gave birth. Atfab truly is a fat b*.

Some questions I'd like to see him ask are along the lines of :
Katie Tarbox claims you do not represent her, but Katie Jones feels that you did claim to represent K.T. Who do you really represent in the matter of the katie.com book title/domain name issue?

Isn't it hypocritical to present yourself as a defender of rights online while trying to get a valuable domain name for free through threats and intimidation?

I'm sure others of you will have insightful questions as well. And at least making O'Reilly aware of this conflict could also make the show more interesting.

Ms. Aftab has a very resilient site. The site hasn't gotten enough traffic to melt yet. Melt the site!

Click here

and here

and here

and here!

Click here

and here

and here

and here!

Click here

and here

and here

and here!

Click here

and here

and here

and here!

Making the URL a link makes it much easier to /. a site.

Thus:

http://www.aftab.com/

I will now proceed to fire up Opera and set it to reload the page every 30 seconds.

Okay, then. To start with:
http://us.penguingroup.com/Book/BookFrame/0,,,00.h tml?id=0452282535 or better yet, use the Search function on that site http://us.penguingroup.com/Search/QuickSearchFrame ?id=katie%21com Penguin UK (returns a "Sorry...")
Penguin Putnam (USA) search...
http://www.aftab.com
http://ParryAftab.blogspot.com/;
http://www.KatieT.com noting the various translations of the book that have all used the same (incorrect) URL/name;
http://www.KatiesPlace.org/pages/1/index.htm;
http://www.wiredsafety.org/

"Parry often says that trying to describe her is like the parable of the six blind men trying to describe an elephant."

KatieT's lawyer, Parry Aftab, is certainly not lacking in ego - there is a section on her website where she revels in the title "Angel of the Internet":

For the amount of time and personal sacrifice Parry has devoted to making sure that everyone, especially children, can learn to use the Internet safely, privately and responsibly, Parry is often called the "Angel of the Internet." (emphasis added)

She is obviously aware of the problems they are causing, as referenced in her blog entry titled Katie Tarbox and Katie.com (the book, not the site) - Monday, July 26, 2004.

One can only gues that KatieT is making as much of this opportunity as she can - after all, she is unlikely to publish any other books of significance making basic editing mistakes on the front page of her website:

As an advocate and expert in this field, I realize that the dangers that lye on the Internet will continue to exist unless we as a collective make the effort to prevent those dangers. (emphasis added)

Shame on KatieT for harrassing the rightful domain owner - I hope she realises that it will undermine what she hopes to achieve in the long term.

And here is a link to Pary's mug shot.

Yikes.

Kinda of a cop out, if you ask me, and sidestepping the issue discussed in the article about her lawyer trying to intimidate Katie Jones to hand over katie.com for free.

On that note, if anyone wants to email the lawyer directly, KatieJ publishes the name and address on her "How can I help" page.

The address for Parry Aftab (her lawyer) is parry@aftab.com.

Ironically, Parry Aftab describes herself as "one of the leading experts worldwide on cyber-crime, Internet privacy and cyber-abuse issues.

Kinda of a cop out, if you ask me, and sidestepping the issue discussed in the article about her lawyer trying to intimidate Katie Jones to hand over katie.com for free.

On that note, if anyone wants to email the lawyer directly, KatieJ publishes the name and address on her "How can I help" page.

The address for Parry Aftab (her lawyer) is parry@aftab.com.

Ironically, Parry Aftab describes herself as "one of the leading experts worldwide on cyber-crime, Internet privacy and cyber-abuse issues.

Why not contact the lawyer. I emailed here, but haven't gotten any response yet.

And Katie T's lawyer is Parry Aftab, Esq. Her site is aftab.com