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Please help get
the word out to other Christian website
owners by putting this alert on your website(s)!
You may link directly to this page.
There is a pornographic
website based in Russia that is buying Christian domain names
when they expire and automatically redirecting innocent visitors
to their porn site! (They are also doing this with other
types of expired domain names, including children's sites.)
This means that if you let
your domain name expire:
(1) everyone who had listed your old URL in their favorites
folder can become a victim;
(2) every search engine that had picked up your URL is still
listing it as your Christian site, and anyone
who clicks on it will be sent to the porn site;
(3) every Christian directory or website that still has a link
to your old URL is sending people to the porn site;
(4) web-rings that included your site are leading people to
porn;
(5) you are now inadvertently a purveyor of pornography!
Who is doing this?
The "RussX Casting Corp." in Russia, in conjunction
with "eee X Hosting" in California, is the new owner
of Christian domain names that have expired and been taken over
by the pornographers. This information shows up in
the "whois" database of any domain name registrar, when
a search is made of the domain names affected.
How is this happening?
They do what's called "data mining"
of domain names to find out exactly when they expire and will
become available. They compile lists of domain names of
websites that are not re-registered, check search engines and
do link searches to see how many sites have links to that domain
name. When they find that there are a lot of such links, they
register the domain name themselves and turn it into a redirect
for their porn sites.
How OFTEN is this happening?
Reports are coming in to the Good News Web Designers Association
that indicate this is a common occurrence. So far, the types of
sites being hit by this pornography company include: Christian
ministry sites, Catholic Diocesan sites, Youth Ministry sites,
children's sites, Christian web designers' own business sites,
amusement parks.
What can you do about
it?
REPORT IT: Contact every directory and search engine and website
that has had links to your site and request that they remove the
link because it's no longer valid.
When you explain the reason for your removal request to the
search engines, they reportedly remove it and ban it. For
example, write to search-quality@google.com
to report it. They will check it out.
To find out what other sites have links to yours (this is
not all-inclusive), go to google.com
and type in the domain name. This search result will give
you an option called "Find web pages that link to (your site)".
Contact those sites to have your link removed.
However, there is no way of finding every place where you
site has been linked. It's possible that many people have links
on their sites to yours, without permission, simply because they
liked you.
Often, you can buy your old domain name back from the new
owner, but they are typically ransoming such domain names for
"no less than $500."
PREVENTION IS THE BEST SOLUTION: It is
well worth the $35 (or less!) a year to maintain ownership. Protect
your domain name!
SPREAD THE WORD: Please tell everyone you
know that if they decide to take a site offline, and if their
site has been receiving a high number of visitors and many links
to it, they run a high risk of this happening to them also.
SEND A LETTER to the registrar that is
selling the re-registrations to this porn company, asking them
to take a stand and do something to stop the spread of porn to
innocent web-visitors. Bulkregister.com is the registrar. Email
them at csrsupport@mail1.bulkregister.com.
The Good News Web Designers Association wrote such a letter
and received this reply: "We have no involvement whatsoever
in determining the domain name(s) registered, and do not have
any opportunity to approve or disapprove of domain names as they
are registered." IF ENOUGH PEOPLE BOMBARD THEM WITH REQUESTS,
PERHAPS THEY WILL GET INVOLVED! All they need to do is look for
themselves to verify that the Christian, children's, etc. domain
names owned by their customer, the RussX Casting Corporation,
are indeed going to porno sites, and they can refuse to accept
any more business from them. Ask Bulkregister to cancel their
account with RussX. This will not stop the porn dealers from finding
a new registrar, but at least we can DO something -- make our
voices heard -- instead of sitting idly by.
ICANN, the international body that regulates registrars and
domain name registrations on the Internet, has developed the Uniform
Dispute Resolution Policy to address situations such as this.
Send a letter to icann@icann.org.
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to write
to GNWDA member Carole
Martin, our resident expert on this.
If you can contribute to the information provided on this page,
write to the GNWDA Administration
Team.
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