Imagine, if you will, that your spouse got you your own domain name years ago, nearly back at the dawn of the Internet age (1996). And it was a domain of yourfirstname.com. Thrilling! And you liked it so much that you put up photo albums there, a chat room (in fact, you go into business running the chat room), your mail accounts, your resume, etc.
And then, a few years later, someone else who shares your first name writes a book about how they were molested by a pedophile after going to an online chatroom. And that person (and publisher) names the book (without ever consulting you first) … yourfirstname.com …
Welcome to the world of Katie Jones, whose katie.com continues to be flooded by unsolicited e-mails from folks describing how they were molested, inquiries from friends and family about whether she was the one in the story, and — of course — harrassing requests from the publisher and author’s lawyers asking her to sell them the domain name … or, better yet, simply give it to them.
Today I also had a very unpleasant phone call from a lawyer working with Katie Tarbox, the author of the book. She tried to convince me that I should donate the domain name to them. Somehow this would resolve my problem. OK so not only do I get walked all over, my life invaded by this book, treated badly by the publisher/author who refuse to acknowledge that they’ve done the wrong thing, but then I get to hand it over to them on a silver plate and I not only have suffered all this aggravation but ultimately have lost the thing that I care about. Exactly HOW does this resolve anything other than give them the thing they want which they have done everything to hijack without any care and consideration for what is right and just?
Secondly, she tells me that they’re planning on launching some school curriculum thing to teach kids about online safety – and they’re calling it Katie.com. Are they insane? No wonder they want me to hand it over.
Thirdly she tells me I can’t really sell it on to anyone because the name is now associated with the book. This seems absurd, this is MY DOMAIN NAME!!!!. Infact, I haven’t ever solicited selling this site – infact I’ve turned down many offers, some very high, because I WANTED TO KEEP IT! I’m actually in the process of considering changing my mind about this now – I’m getting thoroughly fed up with all this, not to mention bully boy tactic phone calls from lawyers, so if you want it, let me know (sigh) and I’ll think about it further.
Rrg.
(via BoingBoing)
The good guys appear to have won .