Cub Scouts Lose Website To Porn Promoter

Two Roanoke County troops, Cub Scout Pack 216 and Boy Scout Troop 216, lost their Web sites because they failed to renew the registration of their domain names.

The Boy Scouts' site - troop216.org - went to an Internet advertiser that snaps up expiring domain names, so the site now contains merely a list of ads. The Cub Scouts, however, lost their site to a company that promotes pornography.

Inseosite renamed the Web site "Gute seiten aus dem erotik Internet" - German for "Good sites for Internet porn." It now contains two dozen links with names such as "porno download" and "erotischer index."

The Scouts didn't know about it until one leader entered "Catawba district Cub Scouts" in the Ask.com search engine and found the list of porn links.

"We've been violated here," said Dan Johnson, Scout executive for the Blue Ridge Mountains Council, which includes Scout groups from 21 counties. "We're outraged."

Johnson said the Scouts have requested that Ask.com update its search index so people are no longer directed to the site if they search for Pack 216.

David Stultz, Cubmaster since September, said wasn't even aware that the pack had a Web site.

Pack and Troop 216's sites were created by a former Cubmaster three or four years ago, according to Chuck Mason, assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 216. "We had forgotten these things even existed," he said last week.

The registration for the Cubs' site expired in March, when it was acquired by Inseosite. Troop 216's registration expired one week ago.

Both groups are victims of software that scours the Web looking for expired domain names. If an organization doesn't pay its annual registration fee, anyone can legally grab it.

Troop 216's was taken over by a company called Domibot that "registers expiring and previously registered domains using an automated process," according to its Web site. Domibot makes money by selling ads on those sites.

Search companies such as Google will provide Web site owners with ads designed to reflect their sites' content. For example, troop216.org now has links to a Scout fundraising site and one to a "support our troops" site.

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