The History of Sex.com, the Most Contested Domain On the Internet

sarahnaomi writes On its face, sex.com looks like a no-frills Pinterest for porn, but behind the site lies an ongoing grudge match between the man who invented online dating and a con artist who stole the crown jewel of the internet out from under him. The history of the domain is well documented, with two books and dozens of articles written on the subject. It was first registered in 1994 by Gary Kremen, the entrepreneur who founded Match.com and was savvy enough to buy up several generic domains, including jobs.com and housing.com, in the early days of the internet.

Comments

NSFW and no American Singles

[michaelmalak]

Link is NSFW.

Also, even if we take "online" as a euphemism to mean "web" and ignore UseNet singles newsgroups and who knows what else before that, the article makes no mention of Dan Bender, who launched American Singles on Feburary 14, 1995.

"The history of the domain is well documented"

[richy freeway]

So why are we going over it again?

we all meet a parasite like this sometime in life

[circletimessquare]

the best thing to do is cut all your losses

you will never get anything from someone who resists all attempts at a constructive life

After losing the case, Cohen fled across the border to Tijuana to avoid paying the settlement. Kremen responded by posting “wanted” signs all over the Mexican town with Cohen’s photo and information. McCarthy said Cohen claimed this resulted in bounty hunters showing up at his door and instigating a firefight with the Mexican police.

Eventually Cohen was extradited from Mexico and sent back to the US, where he sat in jail for six months until a judge gave up on trying to make him pay up. To this day, Cohen has refused to pay a penny of the $64 million he owes Kremen, according to McCarthy. The only thing Kremen was able to wrest from Cohen in the end was one of his properties, which he paid people to destroy before Kremen took ownership of it. And the petty fight continues.

“Kremen pays a set of lawyers just to follow anything Cohen does,” McCarthy said. “So they’ve been playing this cat and mouse game for 10 years. He chases Cohen around the world trying to get the money off of him, and Cohen flees around the world refusing to pay him.”

Kremen needs to just walk away. yes, he deserves much from this douchebag Cohen

but it begins to define your life, your identity, and your legacy, if you stay attached to such a piece of shit, even just antagonistically

cut your losses, move on

Re:TLDR

[msauve]

It's all very confusing. Are we supposed to support the domain squatter or the con artist?

Re:TLDR

[Registered Coward v2]

Sex isn't trademarked, so domain squatting doesn't apply.

Uh no. That's not how it works. Domain squatting is buying a domain for the purposes of speculation, and trademark is irrelevant. It would help if you knew what we were talking about.

It's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. It's no different than someone buying apiece of land hoping it will be valuable some day. He got there first and bought it so when someone comes around and wants i they have to pay for it. That's different than, as you point out, registering trademarks and holding the domain hostage. The first is a legitimate form of speculation and the latter simple extortion.