Jon Monsarrat brings “General Electric and Citigroup Power” to Expose Cyberbullies

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

Posted May 17th, 2012:

"Cambridge, MA ( prsync ) May 17, 2013 - Jon Monsarrat is bring the same consulting services to fight cybercrime that he has used to advise top executives from General Electric and Citigroup. Through previous consulting jobs, he helped executives at GE Trade put together an import / export offset program to help them make sales worldwide. And for Citigroup he worked to design for them an "active bank system". Now he is bringing that power to expose cyberbullies, with a twist: two new patented technologies. The previous press release "Jon Monsarrat, $160 Million DotCom Icon, to Expose 100 Cyberbullies" dated May 8, 2013, was sent out with incorrect information. First, due to a miscommunication when the press release was being written, the venture is not part of Monsarrat's Hard Data Factory, and Rickland Powel l is not a contact. Instead the service is part of Monsarrat Consulting, his private consulting practice, and does not involve Rickland Powell. Second, due to a separate miscommunication, the press release stated that the new venture launched with partnerships. That was in error. The new venture does not launch with any partnerships."

Read the full press release here: http://prsync.com/monsarrat/jon-monsarrat-brings-general-electric-and-citigroup-power-to-expose-cyberbullies-542401/

Comments

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

*blink* Uh...

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Um, I thought his lawyer said there would be no more press releases (in the letter to Ron's lawyer Cos recently posted). Is it possible that this one was in the pipeline already and couldn't be reversed, or does the May 17th date imply that JonMon decided not to listen to his legal counsel in this regard?

-Sor

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was wondering if his releasing this invalidates the agreement between Ron's lawyer and his own?

[awkwardduckling.livejournal.com]

Clearly there have been quite a few "miscommunications" lately...

[cos]

Maybe the purpose of this press release is to undo some of the damage from the previous one, since it reads like a correction: 1) Rickland isn't involved. 2) Ishman law isn't involved.

[ron_newman]

slight correction: what cos posted on my behalf was not a "letter to Ron's lawyer". It was my own statement, summarizing what my lawyer said that Ishman told him. (My lawyer authorized me to post my statement.)

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine what the phone conversations between JonMon and his lawyer are like these days. I'll bet you cash $$ they contain a lot of variants of "You did what?" and "Okay, as your legal counsel, do not do this".

I'd also looooooove to know how many lawyers Johnny Monsarrat (hi googlers!) approached before he found one who'd even take this case.

[sommerfeld2.livejournal.com]

It's possible that the 2nd release was already effectively "in flight" at the time the lawyers reached their agreement about "no more press releases". It's still worth mocking, but I doubt it will make much of a difference in the case. Any future releases, though..

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

...

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Jon Monsarrat is bring the same consulting services

He is also bring the grammar lulz.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

My Icon says it all.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

I really think the recipients of these press releases are losing something by seeing them in HTML form rather than in the original crayon.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

*splort!*

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Third, due to an unrelated typeing error, "Blackmail 100 snarky people" was misspelled as "Expose 100 Cyberbullies". Poor typing and autocorrect have been blamed.

[blk]

oh look, monsarrat.com got a whole new facelift! Now with all new classic stock photos!

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

http://monsarrat.com/it.html

Cyberinvestigation:
Work closely with your law firm, if any. I recommend Ishman Law Firm.
Work closely witih Defend My Name for reputation management
Identify 'anonymous' cyberbullies
Provide you with a mailing address for your lawyer.

WOW! finally, a consulting firm that will provide my lawyer's mailing address for me!

[ron_newman]

Even though I have no sympathy whatsoever for Citigroup or General Electric, they don't deserve to have their names dragged into this. The right side of http://Monsarrat.com now has the GE logo on it. Can you say Lanham Act ?

[lheena.livejournal.com]

He's also incorrectly using the logo and breaking their branding guide. From someone who cares about that kind of thing, I am :[ on their behalf.

(It's called white space, people!)

[samcoren.livejournal.com]

Serious question: Why not just try to change your name instead of going through all this and further dragging the one you were given in the dirt? It doesn't seem too difficult in MA at least, and considering this guy has enough money for an attorney for all this stuff couldn't he just focus their attention on getting a really good petition for name change together? http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/subject/about/name.html

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

JonMon has spent years building a persona for himself online. Yes, you can insert all the jokes you want here about the persona he has built for himself that he doesn't want, but that's not all of it. All of his business successes -- real or not -- all of the projects he brags about, all of his bravado about being a successful entrepeneur and consultant to Fortune 500 corporations, all of his contacts... He uses these to make his living. His personal business model is based on his personal branding.

If he changes were to change his name, then he would have to start building it up all over again. He wouldn't be able to tell people about Turbine, or Hard Data Factory, or Wheel Questions, or any of his previous consulting gigs, because those would all link him to the old name he would be trying to leave behind.

Starting over is hard. I can understand why he wouldn't consider that an option.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Second, due to a separate miscommunication, the press release stated that the new venture launched with partnerships.

Holy God, Jonmon has claimed to have partnerships with companies that it does not, including his lawyer? That's not good for business...

two new patented technologies

Jonmon doesn't assert that he is the inventor of these technologies, but I looked, and Jonmon does have two patents, 8,352,419 and 7,647,351, which are currently licensed to Stragent. Stragent seems to be in the business of acquiring patents and litigating about them: http://www.law360.com/articles/165367/stragent-targets-slew-of-tech-car-cos-in-ip-suits

[beowabbit]

Ooh, thanks; I was curious about the patents and had meant to search for them. Thanks for finding them!

In case anyone else is curious:

Web scrape template generation
US 7647351 B2
http://www.google.com/patents/US7647351?pg=PA14&dq=7,647,351

Online marketplace for automatically extracted data
US 8352419 B2
http://www.google.com/patents/US8352419?dq=8,352,419

I have only barely skimmed either of them, and I am not remotely patent-literate, but on a very casual glance, they look only a little less bogus than his lawsuit against Ron. In particular, 7,647,351 says stuff like “Once data [allowing things announced or advertised on multiple disparate sites to be compared] has been collected, there are no good mechanisms for disseminating it.” In context, it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds here, but it’s not true. (Well, I suppose it could arguably be true if by “good” you mean “nearly universally implemented, and having driven all competition out of the marketplace so as to provide one-stop shopping”, but by that standard the method in the patent isn’t good either, and never will be.)

In fact, ’351 seems (again to my very casual skimming) to be a slightly more general case of case of what Google Shopping has been doing since 2002. (Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a valid patent, since the specific details of the claims matter).

The patents seem to be basically about stuff he did to implement his events listings.

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

I'm glad for the confirmation that Rickland wasn't actually involved or aware of any of this mess, although I'm still curious how on earth the person (jonmon? someone working for him?) who wrote the first pr screwed up that spectacularly.

You'd think with his $160 million he could afford a copy editor though. The errors are almost painful to read.

[clauclauclaudia]

I thought when I first read it that jonmon had copy-pasted his bio paragraph from a webpage and had copied too large a block, thereby including R's info from the page as well. It's still my working theory.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Is this a Viking funeral or something?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Martingale system?

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that his website states about his work with GE: "Project is confidential" yet he is apparently using that project as a tie in with the subject line of a press release. Is there a definition of the word "confidential" that I misunderstand?

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I took that to mean that the existence of the project, and its connection with GE, is not confidential but that anything more specific than that is confidential.

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

Oh my!

Usually when someone goes into damage control mode, they know the gig is up.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is sounding like endgame more and more. But I guess we can't know. (As an arguably fat lady, I volunteer to sing...)

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

You know, something that struck me about this service...

You've really got to do deep, deep background checks on your clients to make sure you're not breaking the law. P.I.s can get into some fairly deep fecal matter if they, say, fork over a private address to somebody with a no-contact order against them or otherwise facilitate the breaking of the law. I can't imagine making somebody pay for a full detailed background check is a popular way to start a client introduction.

[ron_newman]

by the way, Rickland put a second public post on his Facebook page last Friday:

A bit of an update on that lawsuit thing...

I am not involved in the lawsuit in any way and am not participating in it in any way. I have asked to be kept out of it and to not discuss it, and this has been honored for the most part. I understand that my name and address have since been removed, but the Internet, as they say, is forever.

I have a long-standing business relationship with the primary person. Previously, this has included using my address as a maildrop for a company, but that's no longer the case. (Delivery of this business mail at my home address is no longer accepted.)
Because I am not an interested party, and because I am dealing with personal family issues, a family friend (And awesome person!), Regis, has agreed to handle inquries related to this via email and various social media outlets.

Mail sent to me on this subject will be forwarded to Regis, unread. If there is something of importance I need to know, please relay it through Regis - she will be in contact with me as needed and can follow up with people if necessary.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

forwarded to Regis

That would be me, in case anyone still needs anything related to Rickland's (lack of) role in this.

[ifotismeni]

Unfuckingbelievable.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

As it's been a stressful week for many of us, here are some peaceful bird sounds to help people relax:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ENNzjy8QjU