There's been a discussion on an webmasters email list generated by expired church domain names being taken up and used as doorways to adult sites. Here's one of the latest quotes from a concerned list member:
"I got a spam email recently saying that I could increase traffic to my site by subscribing to their newsletter listing expiring sites, and then"re-purposing" the expired names and taking advantage of their traffic. It is not just porno guys doing this, but it is becoming a business of its own.
Educate your clients about the hazards of dropping a developed domain name. Educate your kids about safe surfing."
Since there are existing links, primarily from other church web sites, pointing to the expired domains, this is generating a lot of disturbance, correspondence and concern bordering on outrage among the ecumenical community.
This is, incidentally, the oldest, largest denomination world-wide, so I'm watching with interest to see what, if any, action will be taken if and when the issue is brought to the attention of officialdom.
While anyone is perfectly entitled to take up expired names, so the outcome if there should happen to be class-action litigation instigated is doubtful, what could tip the scales, and cause public attention to get a bit "emotional" to say the least, is that several of the sites I've seen have nothing more than "ENTER" when arriving at the domain. No warning for minors. Uh oh!!
I'd hate to think where an investigative journalist of a crusading persuasion would start to go with this one in a bad mood on a boring day.
Thinking about this, what will be the implications regarding usage for the new TLDs being made available this summer?
