Back in 2005 the Federal Government raided the offices of one of the most controversial, and well known porn stars/porn producers, known as Max Hardcore.
In 2007 Max Hardcore whose real name is Paul F. Little, and his company, Max World Entertainment, Inc., were indicted by the United States Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section with five counts of transporting obscene matter by use of an interactive computer service and five counts of mailing obscene material.
In 2008 Little was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to 46 months in prison.
The jury also ordered that the domain name MaxHardcore.com be forfeited.
The domain was registered to and owned by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) until December 15th when the domain changed to “pending delete or renewal” status at Network Solutions, meaning that the domain name, which already has multiple backorders on Namejet.com the service that gets all of Network Solutions dropped domains, will unless renewed, be auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder.
The government auctioning off property it has seized in the commission of criminal acts, taxes or other legal issues is nothing new, but in this case instead of the DOJ, listing the domain as a owned asset of the government in an auction, in which case they would collect the lions share of the sale price, by not renewing the domain name and simply allowing the domain to drop, the government would not get a penny from the auction.
I have no idea of why the government would not have renewed the domain and put it up for auction and collect the proceeds rather than just let the domain name drop and get nothing for it.
According to Alexa the domain name still receives quite a bit of traffic with a three month ranking of 5.5 million and has a Google Page Rank of 3/10, pretty strong for a site that has been offline for some 7 years.
Here is the current whois record:
Domain Name: MAXHARDCORE.COM
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Registrar URL: http://networksolutions.com
Updated Date: 2014-12-14T11:40:16Z
Creation Date: 1995-12-13T05:00:00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2014-12-12T05:00:00Z
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
Registrant Name: Pending Renewal or Deletion
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West
Registrant City: Jacksonville
Registrant State/Province: FL
Registrant Postal Code: 32258
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: 1.5707088786
Admin Name: Pending Renewal or Deletion
Admin Organization:
Admin Street: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West
Admin City: Jacksonville
Admin State/Province: FL
Admin Postal Code: 32258
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone: 1.5707088786
Admin Email: pendingrenewalordeletion@networksolutions.com
Tech Name: Pending Renewal or Deletion
Tech Street: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West
Tech City: Jacksonville
Tech State/Province: FL
Tech Postal Code: 32258
Tech Country: US
Tech Phone: 1.5707088786
Tech Email: pendingrenewalordeletion@networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS1.PENDINGRENEWALDELETION.COM
Name Server: NS2.PENDINGRENEWALDELETION.COM
Personally we wouldn’t touch the domain with a 12″ pole (pun intended).
We will keep you updated on if the domain drops and how much it sells for at auction.
“I have no idea of why the government would not have renewed the domain and put it up for auction and collect the proceeds rather than just let the domain name drop and get nothing for it.”
Between Agency A and Department B the shortest route must be 1,000 bureaucrats linked in a chain of memos or meetings.
If no policy for handling seized domains has been expressly written and disseminated across federal agencies, then quick thinking is likely to face delays at every stage as memos move up to supervisors, downward for review, laterally across departments … up down, across, up down, across, occasionally getting shelved until next week’s meeting, or frequently becoming a tug-of-war chew toy for interdepartmental battles for territory.
I doubt the federal government can point to the desk of the person whose responsibility this is.
Joseph, How do I get in contact with you? Been meaning to ask you this for a while. You can email me using the link on my site if you don’t want to leave your info on this post. Thanks man.