This kind of thing happens all the time

Anyone who owns their own domain name
really needs to be absolutely on the ball
when it comes to renewal

A lapsed domain name
will get snapped up in minutes
and sold to a porn site or other unsavoury setup

I have seen this happen
to a local church site.

These people know that they can bypass
things like net-nanny and the like
by taking over sites
especially those that have
links from
numerous other sites.

Until the linking sites find out
and update their links
many unsuspecting surfers
will find themselves sucked
into these porno sites.

yours
Gerald


----- Original Message -----
From: Maryann Hazen-Stearns <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 7:51 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Poetry Society Website Shock


> Geez! That really IS a shock!
>
> Roger, thanks for forwarding this information. It's much appreciated.
>
> Cheerwell, Maryann
>
> --- Roger Collett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Peter Howard" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 6:49 PM
> > Subject: Poetry Society Website Shock
> >
> >
> > > The following is from Christina Patterson of the (UK) Poetry
> > Society...
> > >
> > >
> > > WEBSITE SHOCK AT THE POETRY SOCIETY 20/3/02
> > >
> > > Dear All,
> > >
> > > On Thursday we logged on to our computers and discovered that our
> > > website had disappeared. Where before there were hundreds of pages of
> > > information about what's happening in contemporary poetry and about
> > the
> > > Poetry Society's publications, projects, events and work with schools,
> > > we found instead a whole new world of online gambling, products for
> > poor
> > > skin and hair loss, "amazing financial services" and corporate gifts.
> > >
> > > Further searches revealed that this extraordinary website is one which
> > > is known for "spamming", i.e. the generation of junk emails such as
> > > those offering 500% extra income or miraculous recovery of your youth,
> > > looks or sexual performance. Their "keywords" content listed on the
> > site
> > > includes "debt consolidation", "internet casinos", "home equity loans"
> > > and "LCD projector merchant accounts".
> > >
> > >
> > > There seems to have been a problem with the renewal of our domain name
> > > registration. A company called, amongst other names, Ultimate Search,
> > > based in Hong Kong, bought it up and added it to their large and
> > > eclectic portfolio. They have not replied to our emails or answered
> > our
> > > phone-calls. All our emails are now going to Hong Kong. They are not
> > > being replied to or returned to us.
> > >
> > > We've spent five years building up our award-winning website, which
> > was
> > > getting about 300,000 hits a month. It can now be found at:
> > >
> > > www.poetrysociety.org.uk . Please update all your links and bookmarks.
> > > Our general email is [log in to unmask] and all Poetry Society
> > > email addresses now have this suffix. If you have sent any of us an
> > > email since Wednesday 13 March, please send it again to the new email
> > > address ([log in to unmask],
> > [log in to unmask]
> > > etc).
> > >
> > > I would be very grateful if you could forward this email to anyone you
> > > know who is interested in poetry and might be a regular user of our
> > > website. Clearly, there is no way of redirecting people from our
> > > original website and we have a gargantuan (and extremely expensive)
> > task
> > > ahead. We are extremely grateful to charity lawyers Bates, Wells &
> > > Braithwaite, who have been advising and helping us on a pro bono
> > basis.
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > > Christina Patterson
> > > Director
> > > 020 7420 9891
> > > [log in to unmask]
> > > www.poetrysociety.org.uk