• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Awards
  • Privacy Policy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
TheDomains.com

Police Officer In Jail For Buying Domains Of Police Chief & Pointing Them To Porn

August 23, 2013 by Michael Berkens

According to turnto10.com the site of an NBC affiliate station in Rhode Island, “A Richmond police officer faces charges after state police said he purchased domain names containing variations of the chief’s name which redirected Internet users to pornographic web sites.”

The domain name involved according to one report were the elwoodjohnson.com and elwoodjohnsonjr.com.

“Steven Gravier, 41, was arraigned Friday in Providence District Court and charged with using misleading domain names on the Internet. ”

“He was released on $10,000 unsecured bond.”

If you didn’t know it is a Federal Crime in the United States to use a misleading domain names on the Internet and send the domain name to certain types of porn.

The US statute is 18 USC § 2252B – Misleading domain names on the Internet:

(a) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

(b) Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name on the Internet with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

(c) For the purposes of this section, a domain name that includes a word or words to indicate the sexual content of the site, such as “sex” or “porn”, is not misleading

(d) For the purposes of this section, the term “material that is harmful to minors” means any communication, consisting of nudity, sex, or excretion, that, taken as a whole and with reference to its context.

(1) predominantly appeals to a prurient interest of minors;
(2) is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors; and
(3) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

(e) For the purposes of subsection (d), the term “sex” means acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, or physical  contact with a person’s genitals, or the condition of human male or female genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal.

 

Filed Under: Domains, Legal

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

« Russian Registrar Regtime Ltd. Lose Two Legal Rights Objections To PIR’s .OPR & .Verisign’s .KOM
UPDATED 85 New gTLD Pass ICANN IE, 8 Go To Extended Evaluation; Passing .Rio; .NetFlix; .Ping; .Lamborghini .Tiffany »

Comments

  1. Joeray says

    August 23, 2013 at 2:29 pm

    So if you don’t point the name to a porn site your OK?

  2. Michael Berkens says

    August 23, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    under this law yes

  3. JNet says

    August 23, 2013 at 3:34 pm

    Thank goodness that nothing so severe happened to anyone involved in ” the big scandal” surrounding the domain purchase & Whois Privacy breach on ChefPatrickSucks.com …. It was claimed that porn ads/links showed up on the web page for a while….. However da Chef did seemingly lose his job at Moniker during the aftermath

  4. Michael Berkens says

    August 23, 2013 at 3:37 pm

    I believe that this law was not on the books back then

  5. Adam Strong says

    August 25, 2013 at 9:08 pm

    Wait a sec Mike, I can’t believe this . You’re telling me that there is no porn star named Elwood Johnson ? Can’t be possible.


Recent Articles

  • MariaSharapova.com expires and closes over $22K at GoDaddy auctions
  • Sedo weekly domain name sales led by JPR.com
  • NameJet/SnapNames April 2022 Sales Report

Recent Comments

  • Brad on Quite possibly the ugliest name to sell for three figures ever?
  • John on Q1 2022 Liquid Domains Report sees a sharp drop in median prices
  • JayDee on What do you have for $2K or less? list up to 3 names for sale
  • Robert McLean on Q1 2022 Liquid Domains Report sees a sharp drop in median prices
  • Hafiz Khan on Visionary.vc surpasses Solar.vc to be highest reported .vc domain name sale

Polls

How Many .Web Domains Will Be Registered 1 Year After Launch

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
  • Polls Archive

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Categories

Archives

domain name news

Copyright ©2019 TheDomains.com — Published by Worldwide Media, Inc. — Site by Nuts and Bolts Media