February 11, 2000 05:00pm
Judge blocks "Teenmagazine" porn site
Source: CNET News
by: Patricia Jacobus
A federal judge today clamped down on a hard-core pornography Web site, saying that it unlawfully used the name of popular youth publication Teen Magazine.
The U.S. District Court in New Jersey invoked the new anti-cybersquatting law, which protects businesses and individuals from having their names usurped on the Internet. A preliminary injunction prompted the porn site to take down its content at Teenmagazine.com until a final ruling, which is pending.
"What made this case particularly compelling to the court was that the squatters set up a link to a pornography site at an address that would attract teenagers," the magazine's attorney, David Jacobs, said in a statement.
Representatives for Blue Gravity Communications of Pittsgrove, N.J., who were named as defendants in the case, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Trouble began when a new employee at the magazine alerted publishers of the 42-year-old publication that someone else was using the Teen Magazine name.
The employee, online editor Audrey Fine, had told a friend about her new, exciting job, and the friend was shocked when she discovered smut, not articles about youth, when she logged on to Teenmagazine.com.
Soon afterward, teenagers began flooding the magazine with emails expressing disbelief over accidentally running into the porn site, company executives said.
Today's ruling comes as the magazine is preparing to launch a redesigned Web page on Valentine's Day. Teen Magazine maintains its Web site at Teenmag.com.
"We're relieved that this problem has been solved and that Teen Magazine's readers will have no more problems accessing our Web site," editor Tommi Lewis said in the statement.
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