Popesquatting reported on domains
20 April 2005
Ahead of the election of the new Pope Benedict XVI, reports emerged that domain speculators had been buying up domains connected to a possible new leader of the Catholic Church.
The PopeBenedictXVI.com domain is already up for sale on eBay with a starting price listed at $100,000, and a "buy it now" price of $250,000. The domain owner is Total Interest Ltd, a Bahamas-based domain company that purchased the name in February.
Other variations on the papal name taken by former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger are being auctioned at Sedo, Netcraft reports. Popesquatters Chris and Linda Dunaway of Gatlinsburg, Tennessee are offering a portfolio of Benedictine domains, including PopeBenedict.net, PopeBenedict.org, PopeBenedictXVI.net, Pope Benedict.info, PopeBenedict16.com, and PopeBenedictXVI.info.
However, the owner of BenedictXVI.com, which he purchased along with five other potential papal domains, has stated that he has no intention of selling the domain name.
Blogger Roger Cadenhead, who has written several books on Java development, told the Washington Post: "I never really registered it with the intent of making money, and I think to crassly auction it would be a sin of some kind. Whatever decision I make will be guided by the desire not to make 1.5 billion people mad at me... including my grandmother."
The Vatican is unlikely to purchase any domain names from squatters, as it owns the .va top-level domain (TLD), which can be used to create a website for the new pope.
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