Constance, For all of these sort of considerations I will not create a site for or based on this person, using her domain or otherwise. I think it would be, as Tom suggested, a good idea for her to have a website, but if she wants to do this at some point, she can do it. I'm sure Oprah, for examle, would give her all the advice and help she could want to develop a great site. At most, I might suggest that she might benefit by having a site and some ways it could be useful. I am working on ideas that may well involve creating many websites, so have plenty of work to do for this, without having to focus on a site for her, with all the sort of issues you bring up. I decided this shortly after registering her domain name (within a day, certainly). Hopefully, she will simply take the name (without charge or only what it cost me) from me and keep it until she might want to use it for a site.
I will (and already have) be creating sites related to her area of expertise and might link to things she's said, written or clips from her Oprah appearances and other things like that. I don't need this person's name, expertise, ideas, etc. to further my own; I have enough potentially good ideas on my own to work on for the rest of my lifetime, not to mention the think tank I plan to create to further develop them and many more. Some of those ideas will be to advance interests and causes me and this person both care about, as advocates in this area, so whatever I do should complement and further whatever she is doing, even if on a different scale. Unfortunately, I've learned that she apparently doesn't have a clinical practice, which is the orginal, main reason I wanted to get in touch with her in the first place; to help someone out. Maybe I'll get some other referrals from her at some point. Randall ----- Original Message ----- From: "Constance Warner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 1:36 PM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Grabbing domain names of well-known persons? liability and consequences > If the Mystery Person is something in the medical field, there may be > serious liability and medical malpractices implications if there is a > website that offers medical information IN HER NAME. You DEFINITELY > need to consult a lawyer before you do a site for her; you could put her > in serious financial and professional jeopardy with even a small > mistake. (Hey, I work for an association of risk managers--this is not > a joke or a trivial matter.) > > A website that features her as a personality may also damage her > reputation with her peers and make it harder for her to get the grants > she needs to do her work. As odd as it may seem, it can get you in > trouble if you disseminate scientific or medical information IN THE > POPULAR SPHERE unless you do it very carefully, in a manner that's > acceptable in the world in which you do your work. Remember what > happened to Carl Sagan, after he went on Johnny Carson, did a fancy TV > series, and wrote those popular books? His career as a serious > astronomer was over. On the other hand, Stephen Jay Gould managed his > celebrity much more carefully, and remained a respected scientist until > his death. In the website you want to make, can you manage her public > image so that it doesn't damage her professional life? Do you know > enough about the sociology of scientists and medical researchers to do > this? (My husband used to be a scientist--they are a pretty strange lot > sometimes!) > > If you really want to do something about the health problem that is the > Mystery Person's field, why not do a website about that particular > health problem, with links to some of her publications or articles about > her on Oprah? You'll want to use the proper disclaimers, of course, to > be legally safe yourself. But a person's image is valuable--the Mystery > Person's image is valuable--and it can be easily damaged and used up. > To use someone else's image, even in a good cause, is to take something > that isn't really yours and that can damage that other person--and that > can get in the way of any good that they may have been able to do. > > --Constance Warner > > > ************************************************************************ > * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== > * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== > * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name > * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST > * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L > * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress > * Need more help? 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