Katie Jones (web entrepreneur)

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Katie Jones (b. 1961) runs a large Internet chat site, UKChat. After studying music at Cambridge she joined the new MSN in the UK in 1995 and helped launched its community pages. She moved on to AOL and later, in 1997, launched UKChat.

Katie Jones has written extensively on Internet safety, including pieces for The Guardian. She lives in Redmond, WA.

[edit] Katie.com controversy

In 2000, Jones became embroiled in a notable web controversy when an American girl, Katie Tarbox, published a book about what happened when she became the victim of an Internet sexual predator. The publishers, Penguin Putnam, called the book Katie.com. The Internet domain http://www.katie.com had belonged to Katie Jones since 1996. Jones protested but the publishers stood their ground, and Internet privacy advocate Parry Aftab even asked Ms. Jones to turn over the domain. According to Jones, "She then got quite aggressive and said things would 'only get worse' for me if I didn't give it up." [1] [2] Katie Jones did not have the resources to engage in a lengthy legal battle and the controversy continued to rumble on, in Slashdot among other places. In 2004, Penguin Putnam decided unilaterally to rename the book.