Slashdot Mirror
Katie Jones Interviewed
scubacuda writes "Greplaw has interviewed Katie Jones (of the real Katie.com). In addition to the details of the dispute regarding Penguin's 'branding' of the book Katie.com (which many /.ers 'reviewed'), she shares the details of her conversation with cyberlawyer Parry Aftab, how she believes Penguin's title change suggests that it thought it could steamroll her without recourse, and the tremendous amount of support the geek community has shown her." Ms. Aftab has several blogs. Ms. Aftab, if you contact us with a response to these allegations, Slashdot will publish your response (we've also written to your email address). Another reader notes: "Yesterday /. ran an article about the book Katie.com. Out of curiosity I just visited the Amazon.com website to see how many more reviews were on the website. Yesterday when I first checked there were over 300 reviews, most of them negative and the book scored only 2 stars total. Today, the book has 81 reviews with an average rating of 3 1/2 stars."
Shouldn't Katie Jones get royalties from Penguin for using her domain name? After all, in the interview, she stated that Katie.com can't be used as Katie Jones bought it for. She had her resume and pictures of her family and now it might draw pedophiles; therefore, she had to remove the pictures and contact information. A lawsuit should be drawn against Penguin for damages against her domain name and royalties should be paid for that domain; after all Katie Jones freely and fairly bought the domain.
I think Mike Rowe and Katie should get together.
--
Are you a Chipotle Fan?
While I am sure that Katie Jones really appreciated the outpouring of support for her cause, I think that voting the book down was the wrong way to show your support. The book does little damage to Penguin, but does an immense amount of damage to the author of the book. The author did not perpetrate this crime, Penguin did.
The author has been a victim once, let us not make her a victim again.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
What is Amazon doing now - monitoring the traffic it gets to certain books and then removing reviews that contribute to a less than average rating? How do we explain the reduction in reviews from 300+ to 81 and the boost in the rating?
SourceHosting.net, LLC
Ready. Set. Code.
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I was with Amazon from 95-97 and helped build there buying dept and one of the things we fought against was marketing have direct control over reviews and stuff.
After I left, they started removing bad reviews of books all the time... especially when they were overstocked and wanted to sell more. Amazon is not the friendly business it used to be and I try to purchase everything I can through alternate sources.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
A couple months ago some journalist made some disparaging remarks about Phish and Phish fans (phans). Those "phans" with internet connections found the journalist's book on Amazon (a cookbook I believe) and did the same thing they are doing to Katie T.'s book.
It's a shame people do this... becuase actions like these don't gain any ground, and just end up leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
What exactly is a Cyberlawyer anyway?
Is that some kind of half-human, half-robot lawyer?
This Like That - fun with words!
I find it amusing that there's a post in Parry Aftab's blog about Identity Theft Insurance, yet she's helping with the theft of somebody's online identity.
So what? Most of those negative reviews were posted because of the brouhaha with Penguin and the Katie.com domain; they didn't weigh in on the quality of the book itself. Hell, most of the reviews were from people who had never read the book. If Amazon didn't police their reviews for this kind of abuse, any two-bit asshat with a bone to pick could tank a perfectly good book's reputation with a few hours' work.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You could draw a parallel with the implied right to link to a web site. In effect, Penguin are just publishing a non-clickable link to Katie Jones' site. Of course, when lawyers start calling up and claiming that they now OWN your domain name because they published so many links to it, well, that's a whole other ball of wax...
#!/usr/bin/english
I don't think this is a matter of who owns katie.com but rather what right anyone has to publically display your web page, email address, home address, or phone number. IANAL but if Katie Jones' actual phone number had been used as the title of a book about sexual harassment, she would have every right to sue the publisher for any actual or potential harassment she herself might suffer. Same thing should apply to web sites.
You may find fault with what words Katie J. is able to find to state her case, but don't try to turn the whole issue around completely: she's not the one who's doing anything here, it's Katie T.+lawyer+Penguin who are attacking her continued use of her own website. How you can get from that to Katie J. being an attention hog is beyond me; no one would be interviewing her in the first place if this hadn't happened.
Just because she doesn't defend herself flawlessly doesn't make her wrong all of a sudden.
Do they have a patent on censoring the truth now?
Dude, there is SO much prior art on that one, even the USPS won't grant a patent on it!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Say I register Bill.com and someone writes a book about Bill Gates' secret life as a modern day Robin Hood, stealing from everyone and giving a portion back to the poor. Would I be allowed to tell them that they couldn't call it Bill.com? Fuck no I couldn't. Just because I own a domain name doesn't give me exclusive rights to tell other people what to do with the name.
At first she didn't tell them what to do with the name. Penguin had demanded she give up the address and all she wanted was to keep her existing domain. So to use your example: you register bill.com, Gate's book comes out, the publisher demands you give them bill.com
Still think this is fair?
Your wrong in the fact that Katie DOES have a right to tell them they cant use Katie.com... putting a .com site on anything (even as a title) is like advertising for that site..... its the EXACT same reason why people are not allowed to use phone numbers other than 555. What has to happen is the law has to be changed to giving you exclusive rights to a domain name, therfore problems like this (of which Katie isnt the only person who has been bossed around by big companies) wont happen. This isnt like squatting... they are blaintent trying to steal her domain by making her life as misserable as possible.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I don't think this is about the name, is it? I expect the publisher can call the book whatever they like (including someone's domain name, if it's not trademarked). The issue here is that the publisher thinks they can force her to turn over the domain name, which is positively ludicrous.
Katie Jones is the rightful owner of the domain. Penguin knew she owned it (or should have known) before they even chose the title of the book. Corporations can't just go around making up product names that they know full well are already registered domain names, and expect to steal the domains right out from under the current owners.
The mistake we made was in giving negative reviews of the book that only talked about the domain name thing. What really needs to happen would be more one star reviews like the following I just spotted there:
This book royally sucks, August 5, 2004
A Kid's Review
It is poorly written, contradictive, boring in all passages, and written by someone with a sick pendant for the perverse. I have seen better pieces of the litterature in the weekly "Garfield"-strip... and comparing this book to said comic, is even a disservice to Jim Davis!
In other words, stay away from this book, it's hardly worth the paper it's printed on.
Copyright Katie Jones (the real Katie.com owner) shares with GrepLaw some of the details of the dispute with Penguin's "branding" of its book, Katie.com.
Katie talks about her conversation with cyberlawyer Parry Aftab, how she believes Penguin's title change (from girl.com [then a porn site] to Katie.com) suggests that Penguin thought it could steamroll her without recourse, and the tremendous amount of support the geek community has shown her.
Katie, you're involved in an interesting dispute over your domain, Katie.com. Tell us more.
In a nutshell, in 2000 a book was published by the name of 'katie.com' - a story by a girl who was molested by a guy she met on the Internet. Katie.com the domain name belongs to me and the first I heard of the book was when I started to receive email from people thinking I was the author.
And when did you first register your domain?
My husband bought the domain for me as a gift in 1996. He registered one each for us (his is gareth.com) and we both felt we were extremely lucky to get our own names with a dot com extension at a time when they were being snapped up very quickly.
So they could have known that Katie.com was registered to you?
They must've known. Early publicity for the book stated that it was going to be called girl.com and at that time girl.com was a porn site. Suddenly it was changed. This is a clear indication that they knew the title of the book would be significant. I imagine that they thought I was a 'nobody' that they could steamroller me without recourse.
How has the Penguin's "branding" of Katie.com restricted the use of your domain?
I originally had links to my business, my resume, and also personal items such as photo's of my son and other family members. Seeing as my business is online chat / community development it was obviously not in my best interests to be linked to the subject matter of this book so I removed that. And of course, I didn't want people who were interested in the subject of pedophilia or molestation viewing pictures of my baby boy.
The Register covered your dispute a few years ago. Anything in particular that made the issue resurface?
I posted an update to my website http://www.katie.com after I had a phone call from Parry Aftab, a lawyer working with Katie Tarbox on a new project. The lawyer asked me to 'donate' my domain name to them, attempted to emotionally blackmail me into doing so, and when I refused then got quite nasty about it and told me things would 'only get worse' if I didn't. The update was picked up by the blog community and then the press.
Have you ever talked to Katie Tarbox? Might she be able to do something about it, if she so wanted?
Never. She's never approached me. I've read responses she's written to other people denying all responsibility and blaming Penguin. But she's continuing to work using the term 'katie.com' for publicity, and apparently about to launch materials for schools using the title too, so regardless of whether she had control over the title of the book (and I'm sure she must have to some extent) she could choose to put an end to this invasion of my privacy and use another marketing tactic, but she doesn't.
Have any lawyers tried to steamroll you? (On your website, you mention an "aggressive lawyer" [and then link to Parry Aftab, the executive director of KatiesPlace.org who is working with Katie Tarbox])
Yes, Parry Aftab called me ostensibly to write an article for 'Information Week'. It transpired during the conversation that she was working with Katie Tarbox on a new project, at which point I began to feel misled about the purpose of the call. She told me that I should donate the domain name to them, or redirect it to their new project/site. I politely refused and she continued to attempt to pe
Hey, it's her damn domain. She can do what she wants with it.
Something tells me if the site suddenly wen to a hard core "Barely Legal Teens" site, Penguin's interest would perk up REAL soon.
Any self respecting porn web master should be chomping at the bit for all the guaranteed traffic that such a domain would ensure.
And the owner's argument when Penguin sues her? "I could not longer use the domain and had to finance the process of moving all of my personal and business activity to another domain."
Penguin would either have to spend a lot of cash on a lawsuit or changing the name of the book.
Penguin really is being arrogant and irresponsible.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
"I appreciate your thoughts and understand them completley. It is not posted on my web site, but this issue is between Katie Jones and Penguin Putnam. They own the name Katie.com as a published book and decided to call it that. I can do nothing in my power to change it. I would suggest if you would like your voice to be heard and a chance that something is done about it, direct your sympathy to Penguin Putnam."
According to her, it's the publishers at fault here. Can anyone verify this?
2) I like the reference to the "hacker movement" supporting Katie Jones. Perhaps we should start spreading the news a-la Kevin Mitnick? Start plastering "FREE KATIE.COM" stickers everywhere!
You know the funny thing is is that penguin's, the fat cow of an attorney parry aftab's, and katie tarbox's behavior is classic squatting. Traditionally a squatter is someone who moves into a preexisting property and co-opts it for their own use. This is exactly what has happened to the domain name katie.com. The fuckhole's actions basically have been that they think the domain katie.com should be coerced into fitting their agenda of therapy, advocacy, self promotion and profiteering, rather than Mrs. Jone's, the rightful domain holder, choices of usage of that domain.
for her intended purposes, then by all means she should do as one slashdotter suggested in the previous thread about this, that is, post shock photos of goatse for example, although tubgirl might be more appropriate in this instance, should the book's success really take off.
http://www.aftab.com/..... I mean come on, a lawyer is bad enough... there are too many of those. But a lawyer who apparently has no clue that its not squatting when the person owned the domain YEARS before the book was even made and whos sole buisness is to screw people on the web because there ARE so many loopholes in Internet Law..... that just deserves a slashdotting in my book.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I just checked; the negative reviews are still there.
Amazon has an odd sorting scheme, but if you click "view all reviews", you can then further sort by rating or by usefulness. Do the latter. Look for most useful... all are voted useful but one or two stars, mentioning the website bullying. Then click for least useful... those are the five-star ones focusing on the story BEFORE the bullying came out.
You just have to RTF screen.
What's more, it reeks of extortion. "Things will only get worse"? That sounds like a threat to me, anyway.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
It's kind of like what happened to satiric "The Pet Goat" reviews - most of them are gone now, deleted into oblivion.
/. story or vice versa. (There was some question as to whether the submitter was really the author of the Amazon review.)
Happily, the classic "The Story About Ping" review is still available, though I'm not sure whether the Amazon reviewer plagiarized from the
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Subject: katie.com book and domain issue
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 12:30:14 -0600
To: david.shanks@us.penguingroup.com, john.makinson@us.penguingroup.com,
doug.whiteman@us.penguingroup.com, nigel.portwood@us.penguingroup.com,
anthony.laurino@us.penguingroup.com,
Gentlemen of the Penguin Group,
After reading today about the katie.com disparity between the book
and the internet domain, it appears that Penguin needs to admit an error
and correct course. As an individual involved in the internet with my
own "untrademarked" domains, I would be highly offended if the same
were to happen to me.
I expect that the internet community will rise to assist Katie Jones
with financial obligations encountered in dealing with this situation.
I for one would also help her if the opportunity arises. Losing
goodwill with the internet community isn't something Penquin
should desire. Please re-evaluate this.
Thank you
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.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
There are two ways this can end, Firstly Penguin give in and drop the whole shebang, they lost nothing and gain a whole heap of free publicity. This story is circulating the Internet as we speak and It's going to make people remember this book title, and I gurantee a good number of people will go out and buy this book now.
The other ending is that Penguin get the Domain, either legally which is highly doughtful or by buying it from the rightful owner. This means they still get all that juicy publicity and the domain name.
As my old media teacher always said, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
Isee Stars Astro Image Hosting.
If Penguin was to sue the real katie, and win, then it would set a precedent that all you need to take over a domain name is write a book entitled with the particular domain name.
Shit, I hope it happens because I already started work on my new novel, slashdot.org. Its novel filled with greed, power, lust, set in the computer hacker underground.
Katie Jones should set up a Paypal account linked from her website, where people could donate money to help offset her bandwidth and legal fees. If she donates the excess money to a charity, it'd still be clear she's not using the website for profit. If she donated to a victim's charity of some type, it would be a good gesture to show she supports the point of the book, just not the tactics involved. I'd definitely be willing to donate a few bucks to help Katie Jones out.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Maybe Katie.com should become a page, where domain hijacking victims can find help. I know that Katie is really pissed off by now, but on the other side, now she has some experience with this kind of stuff.
Ni.
Well obviously, Katie Jones didn't pay for the insurance.
"That's a real nice URL, Ms. Jones. Would be a shame if something happened to it."
Hello, Im not a lawyer, much less a "cyber lawyer".
But I understand that you can claim a domain name if you own a trade mark for it, right ?
Well, I own alejandro.net, and I own a birth cetificate for that since 1972.
If i were a freelance consultant like she is, then
my name would be my trade mark.
If katie can prove that the term "Katie" has been registered as a trade mark for herself, she should have the right to own it, and, IMHO, she has
more right to claim the name for her life's work, than a publisher and a book.
-Alex
from what i found at the USPTO search.. there is no trademark on katie.com. Katie needs to TM her domain (prior art back to 1996, remember), and then she will be the one with all the power. Of course, IANAL so what she really needs to do is consult a lawyer who knows about trademark law and this kind of stuff.
/.'ers to reply saying they will as well. Yesterday her friend replied here saying he would post a paypal "donate to" link on her site if there was enough interest.. even $2 or $5 from a small percentage of the /.'ers who seem to care about this issue would be enough to turn the tide for her, i'd imagine. A lawyer is a wonderful thing (you should see all the traffic citations that don't appear on my record ;)
I'm personally willing to donate money to help her (this kind of crap angers me soooo much) and I would encourage other
Maybe Katie Jones should redirect traffic to some raunchy porn sites ;-)}
As opposed to those non-raunchy porn sites?
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I dont know, I know it is a tenn book, but some of the reviews on that site, they were pretty bizzare. My personal favorite:
"Thanks, September 18, 2002
Reviewer: "karen588" (Grand Rapids, michgian) - See all my reviews
Hi my name is karen and I am forteen years old, i like this book very very muchl, my freinds at school told me abowt this book and it taugt me how to rite into a chatroom on the interent and how to meet older man cuz all the boys in my school are boring and thye dont know how to treet a girl good. now I rite on a chatroom every day and i have meet many intresting and good looking men. and all because this book showed me how. I will be more careful then the riter of this book thogh when I meet this men in person, I will not make the same misstakes. I would like to meet an older man cuz then all the girls in my school will be jelous of me.
"
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Thankfully it looks like the ruse has failed and the true domain owner is not being scared off. A decent attorny would probably love the chance to tear into Penguin on this one.
Imagine that. She uses AOL for a while in 94, and all of a sudden she is a "cyber expert" competent enough to decide for all of us that "the Internet" needs to be safe and private and whatever. It is enough to make an engineer's stomach turn inside out. What a repulsive, arrogant, slimy person. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if she were involved in creating "cyberlegislation." Ugh.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
People are actually allowed to use numbers other than 555-XXXX. They just don't out of habit/tradition and respect for people who have phones. There is no law (feel free to disprove me) that says you MUST use a 555-XXXX number if you are publishing something fictitious.
The main problem is that people aren't seeing domain names as a parallel to phone numbers, or anything else identifying.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Other people have the same problem with other .com want ot be. On exemple is "http://nissan.com/ the owner mister Nissan from the west coat if I remember have the site from the beginning of the internet, and use the site to promote his services. The big corporation Nissan make then close the site.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Their customer service phone number in the US is:
(800) 631-8571.
Caution: Contents under pressure
This is what I think is happening:
Penguin is very happy about all this fuss. The book is getting free publicity, and the longer this goes on, the more sales of this book will be helped, while doing no real damage to the rest of the company.
They may buy the domain down the road, but they're more likely to file a lawsuit to take it, counting on this poor woman not having the cash to stand up to them in court.
As fun as it is to joke about it, I assume Penguin would sue her into oblivion if she were to sell the domain to a porn company, and would tear her to shreds and demonize her in the courtroom.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
You are correct, there is no law. In fact, a year or so ago, a movie (Bruce Almighty) used a real phone number. Comedy insued for the owner of the phone number.
Linky here
Your webpage was on the Internet. You had your resume and pictures of your family there. You chose to allow this information to be accessible. They didn't invade any privacy by naming their book that.
... so, if I put up a popular web page telling people to mail stuff to 2100 East Cliff Road, Apt. 118A, Burnsville, MN 55337, you would not have a problem with that? I mean, you put information about yourself up on your webpage, link to it from a slashdot posting.
Sure
What if, on that same web page, I tell people to call 952-707-1982? Obviously, you chose to allow this information to be accessible.
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.
See, that's interesting.
If you check out Katiesplace.org, you see Katie T, and Parry Aftab's name promenantly.
If you check out Katie T's projects page, she also mentions Parry Aftab as being part of these projects.
If you check out Parry's blog, she talks about katiesplace.com being a collaboration between her and Katie T.
Nope. Sounds like Parry is working with Katie T to me, as shown by publicly available information on the pages "controlled" by the respective folks. Thus, Katie Jones still has the story with more easily verifiable truth to it.
Gentoo Sucks
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*.
yes, Anonymous Coward is the perfect handle for someone who would post such offensive drivel.
NO ONE DESERVES TO BE RAPED
EVER
sociopathic moron...
Tell that to Lindows
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
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:-) We give all webbers the permission to copy our legal disclaimers, however, since limiting legal liability on the net is something we all want. Just don't blame us if it doesn't work. Also feel free to link to us.
Actually, in a perfect world we would have morally responsible lawyers. At least, they would know that a buried agreement without even a front page click is unlikely to be enforceable.
Our website and the materials contained in the site are copyrighted. That means terrible things can happen to you, including being drawn and quartered, if you copy or alter anything we publish at the site.
Where'd she get her law degree - an online college? Who uses emoticons in a disclaimer? Who threatens being drawn and quartered in this day and age?
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Fairly straightforward and surprisingly reasonable.
We are lawyers licensed to practice law in the states of New York and New Jersey only. The availability of this site to residents of any other state or country is not intended as a solicitation of clients in those states or other countries.
Now I'm confused. How does someone only licensed in New York and New Jersey have anything useful to offer in a web domain case?
Neither the receipt nor the distribution of materials, including the use of private electronic mail, constitutes the formation of an attorney-client relationship. An attorney-client relationship will be formed with Parry Aftab only upon the execution and delivery of a retainer agreement and the satisfaction of the conditions contained therein. Materials distributed shall not in any event be deemed confidential or privileged.
Translation: no privacy of what you send us is intended until you send us money.
No one shall be entitled to claim detrimental reliance on any views or forms or models provided or expressed, or to claim that there is a duty to update answers or materials provided or to use care to protect the interests of the recipient. You should not rely on our statements (or those of any other website) for legal advice, and should always confirm such information with your lawyers, who should be responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary to check all information and personally assuring that the advice they provide is based on accurate and complete information and research from any available sources. Links are provided for your enjoyment and no endorsement should be inferred therefrom. Now with this said, enjoy the site....
Translation: No matter how we set up this site to look like it offers useful information, we make no guarantee we were qualified to present any of it.
I've always wanted to write a book. I think "aftab.com" will be a great title.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Plume Re-titles Book by Katie Tarbox A Girl's Life Online (PDF)
... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book
(text reproduced 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
called Katie.com by Katie Tarbox, an eye-opening account of one teenager's descent into
the seductive world of the Internet. 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.
The fact that the book, Katie.com, and the website shared the same name was purely
coincidental. 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.
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. 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.
"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. 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. We have always taken this situation very
seriously. And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just how
dedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."
L-O-O-S-E is the antonym of TIGHT. EG: Your mamma is looser than a crack whore.
L-O-S-E is the antonym of WIN. EG: You are a total loser.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Although it pains me to defend the bitch, her use of esquire is appropriate. See here.
No you cannot copyright the word "windows". However you can TRADEMARK it.
Mr. O'Reilly, It has come to my attention that Parry Aftab is claiming she will be on your excellent show this month. I'd like to make sure you are aware of the cyber abuse she is a part of while at the same time claiming to be a "leading expert" on Internet privacy and cyber-abuse. The domain katie.com was registered 1996 by Katie Jones and in the year 2000 Penguin published a book by Katie Tarbox with the title katie.com. The original title of the book of was going to be girl.com, but at the time girl.com was an online porn site. The title was changed to katie.com this shows that Penguin did research the domains and chose to use katie.com knowing that it was already registered. Now this has destroyed the ability of Katie Jones to use her domain. In conversations between Katie Jones and Parry Aftab, Parry urged Katie to donate the domain because it really belonged to Katie Tarbox because of the book title.
I would love to see you grill her on why an expert on Internet abuse would condone and attempt to use emotional blackmail in this manner. This is a clear case of abuse with malice forethought by Penguin, yet Katie Jones is a private citizen without the resources of a company like Penguin. The only hope she has is for influential and respected members of the Press, like yourself, to show this blatant abuse to the world.
This is an issue that I would love to see a good strong precedent set for because I own the domain of my last name and do not want to ever have to go through something like this myself.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
Given the subject matter, "katie.com" is the frigging stupidest name possible for the book.
The book is about Katie Tarbox being exploited by an "Internet predator" (really, a predator who chose to use the Internet -- it's necessary to make this distinction because there are feebs like Parry Aftab out there). The last impression that Katie T. and Penguin and self-proclaimed protector of children Parry Aftab should want to give is that Katie T. in any way, shape or form encouraged or prompted the exploitation.
Yet, what is the meaning, the implication, of adding the ".com" extension (I mean, besides when it's being used for actual accuracy, which apparently Aftab and Penguin don't give two craps about)? Thanks to the whole dot-com hysteria, "dot-com" has come to mean in the public mind "something's for sale." pencils.com? Pencils for sale! hubcaps.com? Hubcaps for sale! girl.com? Girls for sale!
So basically Penguin and Parry Aftab are fighting hard, and fighting dirty, for the right to use a title that implies Katie Tarbox put herself up for sale on the Internet. Great going, guys!
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
"You are about to review any Amazon book, or comment on a review. Please indicate which of the following is most accurate about yourself:
(x) Gandhi took lessons from me.
( ) George Washington was a lightweight.
( ) I could pass a polygraph with a tack in my shoe.
( ) Waffle maker at the IHOP.
( ) Misson accomplished.
( ) I am not a crook.
( ) I'm an editor for Amazon book reviews.
Your input is very valuable to us,
Sincerely. The editorial staff at Amazon.
Interesting reading, thanks. I guess I just fell victim to another division by a common language. Being Irish--and therefore a speaker of British English--I have always known "Esquire" to be a slightly pretentious variation of "Mister". Anyone entitled to call themselves "Mister" (ie. any adult male) can instead use "Esquire", though never both. After some more reading it seems that this is a very recent use of the word, with no claim to being more correct than your (American) version.
Why is anything anything?