WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Controversial cyber figure Dan Parisi announced this week that his pornographic Web site whitehouse.com is up for grabs, resurrecting the controversy over domain names.
He expects not only to make a significant profit over the $10,000 he paid for the domain in 1997; he also hopes to find a buyer who would give the notorious site an extreme makeover into a whole new image of respectability.
Internet experts differ over the likelihood of such a buyer turning up. They agree, however, that the whitehouse.com's story captures the complexity of Internet domain naming and the on-going attempts to regulate a field in which you occasionally get more, or less, than you bargain for.
According to Parisi, whitehouse.com has attracted more than 85 million visitors since its launch and brings in more than $1 million a year. The businessman, who also runs a wide range of online complaint forums under several variations of the sucks.com title, says he's selling the site because his 2-and-one-half-year-old son is nearing the age when he'll start understanding things. "My only concern is my son growing up," he said.
However, some experts on the expanding regulation of domain names look at the sale within the context of an online environment increasingly unsympathetic to any potential confusion. While whitehouse.com appears impervious to current legislation seeking to minimize such confusion, the tide is definitely turning on potentially misleading URLs, experts say.
"I think he's cashing out," said William Munck, a Dallas-based attorney who has substantial experience in the area. "I think he realizes that times are changing and he'll end up spending a lot of money on legal fees."
Parisi has recently been challenged in court by Netlearning Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Michael Bloomberg, for other domain names.
Jeff Matsuura, University of Dayton law and technology program director, says about Parisi and whitehouse.com: "I don't think he's doing anything illegal. But we're seeing a public opinion climate increasingly hostile to anything misleading online."
Longer-standing domain name regulation in the area focuses almost exclusively on trademark infringement. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 is legislation protecting trademarks online. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy is a fast-track arbitration procedure under which Parisi lost his Madonna.com domain to the pop singer in 2000.
Trademark regulation is hardly an issue in whitehouse.com's case, though. National Fruit Product Co., the makers of White House apple juice, appealed to trademark laws when in 1999 they unsuccessfully challenged Parisi, who owns the trademark for whitehouse.com.
But more recent domain legislation has a broader scope. A rider to the unrelated Child Abduction Prevention Act of 2003, the Truth in Domain Names Act threatens those who use intentionally misleading domain names to expose minors to sexually explicit content with up to two years in prison.
An additional symptom of federal resolve to regulate the domain naming area, the Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act, was proposed earlier this month in a push to increase penalties for presenting false information when registering domain names.
Some experts find the obvious similarity of Parisi's domain name to the chief executive mansion's whitehouse.gov domain a matter of concern and accuse him of capitalizing on this similarity to drive traffic to his site.
"If my son, who's 11, wants to write a paper on the White House, the first thing he'll do is type 'White House' in Google and end up on a porn site," said Munck.
Parisi calls the assertion that the site owes its popularity to accidental visits by consumers seeking information on the White House "a ridiculous claim."
"Ninety-nine percent of the people are going to the Web site to see adult content," he said.
Parisi bases his estimate on the unpromising start of the Web site, which made its debut as a forum for political discussion, he says. "When we were a political site, nobody was going to it," he said. "Then, we put adult content on it, and it took off."
Even if visitors end up on whitehouse.com by mistake, Parisi says, they'll know immediately that they have the wrong address. And more importantly, it wouldn't be too late for them to quit without dabbling in the soft porn the site is famous for. "There's no adult content on whitehouse.com," said Parisi. "If anybody wants to go to the adult content, they have to scroll to the bottom of the page."
The bottom of the page features a link to whitehousesex.com accompanied by a warning that the sexually explicit content to follow is not intended for minors. The main page is free of potentially offensive material, but at the same time it leaves little room for confusion with an official White House page, says Parisi.
"If I am a voter trying to get to the site of the White House, I know I am not there," says Diane Cabell, of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.
"Except I see a presidential candidate on the Web page," Cabell adds.
Whitehouse.com currently features a mock-up of Democratic front-runner John Kerry staring longingly at a midriff-baring model. The caption reads: "Our candidates are better looking! (and probably know more about the economy)."
After a 1997 mock-up of former first lady Hillary Clinton appeared on the Web site, Parisi received a reproachful letter from the White House and pledged to abstain from using images of the White House, the president or first lady. That agreement put an end to pressure on Parisi from the officials behind whitehouse.gov.
Jonathan Wilson, chair of the Internet Industry Committee of the American Bar Association Public Utility Section, says the disclaimer and the lack of explicit material on the main page make whitehouse.com hardly vulnerable under current legislation.
In fact, says Harvard Law School graduate student Ben Edelman, the author of several cybersquatting studies, such legislation has lead pornographic Web sites with potentially confusing names to change their approach. "Rather than showing porn, they show 'invitations' to see porn -- but not actual porn -- on the first screen," he said about the practice of moving explicit content just "a mere single click" away.
Parisi says he turned down a seven-digit 2002 offer from a California broker, whose anonymous client, judging by the bid's timing, might have been presidential candidate Howard Dean. Parisi, who declined to answer questions on potential prices for the site, said that he will demand solid evidence that his successor won't continue in the explicit-content tradition of the site.
"Unless I know who you're representing, I am not selling," he said.
"I don't think he would be successful selling the domain to one of the legitimate candidates," said Cabell, who thinks political entities might be reluctant to take over a site associated with pornographic material.
Other Internet experts beg to differ, however. "If there's one thing the American population has proved, it's that they tend to forget some things very quickly," said Munck. "Whitehouse.com is a great URL, and I'd be surprised if one of the political parties doesn't agree to buy it."
Matsuura compared the possible revamping of the site to the new legitimacy of Napster, which exemplifies a trend of problematic online entities going respectable in response to an ever-closer scrutiny by both regulating institutions and the public.
As for the risk that what Parisi describes as whitehouse.com's faltering start might discourage political buyers, Matsuura says the consequent notoriety of the site has probably paved the way for a more successful second try.
