Audio By Carbonatix
After the Arizona Mountaineering Club launched its Web site on a new domain name last year, www.amcaz.org, club officials figured it would be okay to let the old domain expire.
Robert England, the club’s president, says he remembers discussing the issue with other members last summer. Nah, they figured, no one would turn that domain into a porn site.
Wrong!
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The old domain, azmountaineeringclub.org, nows hosts a hardcore porn site that would embarrass a Roman emperor. We’d feel dirty just linking to it.
England writes about the faux pas in the March edition of the club’s newsletter, the Arizona Mountaineer, which we picked up between climbing sessions last week at the Phoenix Rock Gym in Tempe. We caught him on the phone last night.
The worst part, England tells us, is that Googling the club returns a link to the porn site, typically in the top three search results, or even first in the results, depending on the keywords used.
England says he’s written to Google and other Internet companies. He hasn’t heard back from anyone. The contact information for the new domain name owner apparently is fictitious.
The 30-year-old club, which has more than 200 members locally, conducts training, spreads awareness of issues affecting climbers, and helps maintain some of the more popular outdoor climbing routes in the Valley.
