The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet's Rise

Thirty years ago, searching for a love connection was largely limited to scouring personals in the newspaper. Those looking for something with less commitment had pornographic magazines or VHS tapes for immediate gratification. But by the mid-'90s, the Internet forever changed how people look for love and satisfied lust, thanks to the foresight of two pioneers whose similarities were equaled by their hatred for each other.

In The Players Ball, David Kushner (Alligator Candy) recounts the battle for sex on the Internet during its infancy. Gary Kremen founded Match.com and invented online dating by bringing classified ads online. Recognizing the potential, Kremen bought other domains, including Sex.com, to use in the future. Within a few years, Kremen was dismissed from the company he founded. Adding insult to injury, he discovered that a con artist named Stephen Michael Cohen had claimed ownership of Sex.com. Cohen used fake letterhead and falsely claimed that Kremen no longer owned the domain; Cohen convinced domain registrar Network Solutions that he was the new owner, allowing him to earn tens of millions of dollars a year. A cat-and-mouse game ensued as an obsessed Kremen pursued Cohen, who routinely taunted Kremen.

Kushner's multifaceted portrait of the two men shows that the tenacious Kremen and the shameless Cohen shared much in common. Both had a grudging respect for each other, despite years of legal battles during the "anything goes" mentality of the nascent technology. Kushner's take on this chapter in Internet history is compulsively readable and always entertaining. --Frank Brasile, librarian

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