December 17, 2003 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — US law enforcement officials revealed this week that John Zuccarini, who pleaded guilty to registering thousands of misleading domain names in order to redirect children to adult sites, was aided by Dutch Web hosting company PGW Internet Solutions (pgw.nl), according to a report published Tuesday by the Register.
According to the Register, thousands of Zuccarinni’s Web sites were hosted from the Netherlands by PGW and its adult hosting company XXXextreme.nl.
Zuccarini, reportedly PGW’s largest customer, was already a well known cyber squatter when many of his sites were shut down in 2000. He later re-registered the same domains in the Netherlands, often using PGW’s address in the WHOIS database.
Zuccarini derived a significant income from the referral fees he earned from directing traffic to adult Web sites, claiming in 2000 that he was making $1 million a year, according to the Register.
Zuccarini was convicted last week under a new US law that makes it a crime to entice or lead children to adult content Web sites.
