A Brief History of 'sex.com'

linuxwrangler writes "Violet Blue's current 'Open Source Sex' column in SFGate covers the amusingly sordid history of sex.com. More graft and corruption than hanky-panky, the article details some of the exploits surrounding the much-desired URL, including an attempted assassination, drug smuggling, money laundering, and a bid to buy out Ceasar's Palace. From the article: 'It's estimated that Cohen made over $100 million off the URL in the years he had it, even making a 1999 bid to buy Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and was only forced to give it back to Kremen when a San Jose court awarded the URL (and $65 million in damages) to Kremen in 2001. It had been a five-year struggle for Kremen, both in battling his speed addiction and in trying to raise funds for his own litigation. Even though his dot-com boom resume boasted typical startup-style impressive credentials, Kremen was only able to afford the court bills when bitter Sex.com porn industry rivals helped fund the case.'

Comments

Rubber Alligator

[omeomi]

The only thing missing from the Sex.com story is a dead stripper found with a rubber alligator lodged in her throat

Well, that seems easy enough to fix...

Now, where to find a rubber alligator...

Social engineering

[Life700MB]

Ah, score another for the good old social engineering that made it posible to obtain the domain without having the rigts to it.

--
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Re:Social engineering

[Joebert]

Social Engineering ? To obtain Sex ? Say it isn't so !

Re:Social engineering

[Cheapy]

Usually it's called "beer"....

It was a long, hard case...

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

..but Gary Kreman kept pounding, pounding away, thrusting again and again into the slippery corridors of justice. It was sweaty working penetrating the tight holes of legal precedence necessary for him to release his load of depositions, a sticky, exhausting process. But he prevailed! A model for us all...

Crow T. Trollbot

Re:What about whitehouse.gov??

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering if there's a similar tale behind the owners of whitehouse.gov - the other hot pr0n site on the internet

If you feel that whitehouse.gov is the hottest porn site on the Internet, you sir are the biggest GW Bush fan I've ever met. You win, hands down.

Re:What about whitehouse.gov??

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Oh come on: CONDIE RICE. Raaawr! What? None of you find power sexy?

just make sure...

[advocate_one]

you type it right... oh see what you get for only being one letter out...

Appropriate google ads?

[Pedahzur]

Am I the only one that finds these google ads at the bottom of that article to be apropos:

Sex Offender Registry
Search updated sex offender list Free service with maps, easy to use
----------------.org

Registered Sex Offenders
Protect your child. Find out now if a sex offender lives in your area.
www.---------------------.com

Instant Criminal Records
Nationwide Criminal, Felony & Sex Offender Checks. Updated Regularly.
www.--------.com

Money

[Lord_Dweomer]

Just out of curiosity, how is it that he made that much freaking money off of a domain name? I'm sure he had ads and affiliate stuff all over the place but how in the hell did he make THAT much, it seems WAAAY more than he should have been able to make.

Can any adult webmasters weigh in on the amounts of money to be made in your business? How much would you say your "average" pr0n site pulls in? What amount of traffic is required for that?

It would only be a good porn domain...

[Krater76]

... if you could type it with one hand.