Jail Time for Misleading Domain Names 612
Bootsy Collins writes "The Miami Herald is running a
story
on the first-ever prison sentencing (and, for that matter, prosecution and conviction) under the Federal Truth in Domain Names Act. This act, combined into the larger
Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today Act (PROTECT) of 2003, made it a violation of U.S. Federal law to use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive someone into viewing obscene material -- larger penalties if attempting to so mislead minors, but up to two years even if adults are the object. In the case in question, a man was convicted for registering thousands of domain names which were close misspellings of popular web sites for kids. Attempting to surf to those sites would redirect to a site entitled 'Dorm Sex Party.' Before being arrested, the convicted typosquatter made about a million dollars for the referrals." He's been on Slashdot before.
Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, going to jail for setting up a website seems....excessive. Surely just taking it down and a fine would be enough?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
After 3 years in jail, he'll actually become a criminal once he's out.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, Exactly! (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it two million.
Re:Yes, Exactly! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
You know coorporates will inflate losses to get super tax breaks.
Infact, mitnik doing $1m damage, and coroporates claiming $5billion, to get $5b in tax refunds is more of a crime than mitnik, and those CEOs need to get banged up the ass, take their CEO lives away.
But you wont see any FBI raid a $100b companies CEO house and shove him in the pound in the ass prison and throw him in cells with real killers.
Yes, steal a loaf of bread, get pounded inthe ass, steal billions/trillions and sit back in your $12m mansion and army of lawyers and 'charity contributions' and you suddendly look like a nice guy.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's the concept of variable sentences (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Our justice system is broken (Score:5, Insightful)
The the greatest genius of the framers of the Constitution is that they founded our country upon powerful general principles of freedom and equality. In many cases they themselves were not ready to face the full implications of those principles, yet in a truly subversive act, they gave those principles the ultimate power of law.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, although clearly recognizing the evil of slavery, was unable to give up his own slaves. Yet he helped to found our country general principles that would ultimately make slavery untenable.
These powerful principles were like time bombs in our Constitution, and it was left to the logicians of our society--the judges--to work out the full implications of those principles. It has taken over two hundred years to do so, and we are not done yet.
There is a danger that we will turn away from those deep principles. There have been attempts in the past, such as the effort to amend the Constitution to make burning the flag an exception to the protection of free speech. We are seeing this again, with the effort to amend the Constitution to prohibit states from allowing gay marriage.
If we ever do start to amend the Constitution so as to limit people's rights instead of expanding them, I believe that our nation will have turned a corner from which there is no returning, and will have begun a repudiation of those principles of freedom and equality which our founders fought so hard to establish.
But we've approached that brink and turned back before. I can only hope that we will continue to do so.
Re:Our justice system is broken (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
How about child porn, by your logic? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about child porn, by your logic? (Score:3, Insightful)
The same way I guess that rape videos, or news and movies about murder also hurts people; and since rape and murder is also illegal, like childporno, I guess you are infavor of censoring action movies and the news.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, no (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Uh, no (Score:4, Funny)
Not that I'm saying I'm the type of guy to get off on watching a cute Asian car get jump-started by two big black American limousines, nor enjoy in any way watching a car park full of BMWs do each other, or monster trucks or...... ahem... doesn't do it for me at all.
No, I spend all my time perusing goatse like a good Slashdotter, but if I was that way inclined, then I'd feel pretty damn cheated that I wasn't getting hot European cars, or whatever.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like registering the domain names wasn't the problem at all - the problem was that he deliberately attempted to redirect children to porn sites, and happened to use domain names he registered to do so. I don't see why there should be any controversy about this.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Interesting)
The REAL truth about sending people to prison : (Score:5, Insightful)
It's my firm belief that sending non-violent criminals to prison
does more harm than good.
There are many other ways to punish someone, besides sending them to prison : home confinement, community service, probation, fines, are all better options for a large percentage of offenders.
Prison should only be the punishment of last resort. It is far from a solution, and the notion that sending some people to
prison acts to prevent others from committing crimes is childishly naive, and doesn't stand up to statistical scrutiny.
Sending non-violent offenders to prison is only one more
in a long series of huge mistakes made by the US government.
Of course, this will not be news to intelligent, well-read people.
All you "law and order" types need to consider this : when someone is sent to prison, unless they die there or have a life sentence, they WILL eventually be released. And when they are,
the rest of society will very likely pay some sort of price for the damage this person has incurred while in prison. Thus, society is
screwing itself by sending non-violent offenders ( or offenders who don't present an actual danger to society ) to prison. Far better to keep these people OUT of prison and punish them in some other way. NOTE : I do believe that crimes *should* be punished, but the point is, it's possible to punish people without
permanently damaging them, that sending someone to prison is quite likely to result in permanent damage.
Any of you out there who haven't done time are not sufficiently informed to comment on the advisability of sending non-violent offenders to prison. You can of course write what you like, but keep in mind that your thoughts might have the same level of
validity as those of a man describing what pregnancy feels like.
Oh, and the invasion of Iraq was about preserving access to oil,
and the "anti-gay marriage" stance the current administration has embraced is an attempt to pander to the religious right
and gain votes.
Don't let YOUR government sucker you into accepting policies that end up screwing YOU.
Thanks, and good evening.
Re:The REAL truth about sending people to prison : (Score:4, Insightful)
Troll or Tool. Take your pick.
Either that, or you're experimenting. That little voice inside of me (SHUT UP! I'm trying to type.) is telling me [in a Jiminy Cricket type voice], "Perhaps he's not a troll. Perhaps he is performing an experiment to see how the modding will go if he posts what the slashdot 'vocals' want to hear?"
Hmmm....
Re:The REAL truth about sending people to prison : (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all of us have taken the straight and level path, yet I never learned about true methods of crime until I was within a jail cell. Spend a month (that's thirty days of hell, let me repeat thirty days of expaining to your boss why you can't show up for work) in lockup, and you'll not only learn a lot about the other side, you'll also learn a lot about that little thing that you thought was no big deal yet landed you in this situation. Troll? Yeah, a troll from jail who has experienced the misery of lockup hell. It sucks, don't try this at home. It will jade you for life.
Re:The REAL truth about sending people to prison : (Score:5, Interesting)
Our prisons are simply an unhappy place to be, where bad people do more bad things and have more bad things done to them. None of this promotes reform.
I agree with your assessment, and I think that your solution is valid but only temporary. I think our prisons should be run like reform schools where people have to do back-breaking work and conform to a strict etiquette.
Re:Why do we imprison violent criminals? (Score:4, Insightful)
second, in the jail, criminals learn quite a lot interesting things and they meet other criminals. and after they are released they have more than enough knowledge and contacts to do much much bigger crimes.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
What is your scientific evidence that suggests porn will HARM kids in the slightest?
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:4, Informative)
Shielding kids from pornography isn't the same as shielding them from sex. Pornography != sex.
That said...isn't shielding young kids from pornography similar to shielding them from drugs and alcohol?
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like you want to shield your children from other things they are not mentally equipped to understand or handle yet, you should shield your children from porn.
While it's probably not wise to shield your children from knowing about sex after they have shown themselves too have an interest in it (which usually occurs long before puberty), it doesn't strike me as very smart to let them discover it through internet pornography either.
Let's face it, most internet pornography is to normal sex, as most horror movies is to experiencing a death in the family. Without the maturity and experience to separate fantasy from fiction, stuff like this can be damaging to children.
What is your scientific evidence that suggests porn will HARM kids in the slightest?
I doubt there is much, as this is a relatively new problem. The previous generation smuggled playboy (which is hardly comparable to most internet porn) under their mattresses. It's only in recent years that 5 year olds can see midgets pissing and shitting on women being unwillingly double-penetrated by a men with leather masks, and a dildo up her nose.
It's hardly a secret that kids that watch lots of movies intended for more mature audiences, on their own, without adult supervision, often becomes "cases" for the special teachers, school psychologists, etc...
Re:Get a leash... (Score:4, Insightful)
I discovered my 10 year old had been using my wife's laptop to look for porn when a couple of his neighborhood friends came over. Let me tell you, this was not your granpa's porn. No doubt, he was curious and found a couple of sites and within seconds was clicking links that carried him into brutal domination, shit and piss, fuck me with a crowbar land.
I think the difference is that the net makes it too easy to end up seeing sick, violent, degrading sexual images unintentionally. If you're an adult, and that's what your're into -- fine by me. When I was a kid, the only way I would have been able to get access to that kind of stuff would have been to get on a bus and go across town to where the sex shops and peep shows were.
I don't think seeing those images will scar him for life, but I'd rather he didn't see that kind of stuff until he was a bit older and better equiped to understand what that's all about.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
What is your qualification to make that statement? Are you an expert in child development?
Are you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Funny)
heart
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds like a typical prosecutor's embellishment. Not to defend the guy, it's just that what a prosecutor says after a conviction isn't subject to rules of evidence or rebuttal, and they like to puff their accomplishments. So, when both kids and adults made typos and got sent to the front door of a porn site, it was transformed into "targeting pornography at children" through the miracle of politics.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
And 5,500 domains?!?
This guy got exactly what he deserved, assuming he got 3 years in jails and a 1 million dollar fine so there is no money waiting for him when he gets out.
This man is a scum sucking pig that preyed on little childrens mistakes to give himself an easy life.
Let's do the math:
5,500 domains, say 10 people per day (quite conservative), for a year. So this guy makes 20,075,000 people look at p0rn (daughters, mothers, grandmothers), with no way of using the back button or getting out of it, and prison time is excessive?
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
B) All that you accomplish by putting him in prison is forcing him to associate with hard criminals, who kill, mame, rob and rape. How exactly is that in any way a good thing for his 'correction'?
The most harsh thing that should even be considered for this guy is is a fine and home detention with no computer access for some
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife and I are stricter than most (even in Utah, where we live). We don't even like our children (daughters: 5, 3, 1) to watch Sponge Bob Square Pants and other cartoons like it. We both enjoy watching and discussing cartoons and movies with them.
I'm guessing, from your comment about Utah, that you guys might be from the Mormon faith. Each to their own, I say -- I myself am a staunch atheist. But your comment about Sponge Bob caught me. A few years back, I was out in Africa (Ghana, to be specific), teaching high-school level physics to kids and young adults in a small village (with a UK organisation called VSO, similar to the US Peace Corps). I was meant to be there 2 years, but I quit after 7 months.
The reason why I quit ties in with Sponge Bob. I left Ghana early because my life was missing discourse and debate -- the stuff which makes us feel part of a community. But, surprisingly, the discourse I was lacking was not related to the big ideas such as politics, economics, science, etc. Although I had frequenct discussions on these topics with my local friends, I still felt that I was lonely out there.
It transpires that what I missed in Ghana, and why I decided to quit, was a longing for the trivia of the world I had grown up in -- what had happened that week in my favourite soaps, etc. I detest celebrity cultrue, but what I found in Ghana from interacting from my Engish (i.e., same-culture) friends is that celebrity culture, and other manifestations of trivia, is the lubricant on which much of Western -- and indeed, all -- civilization runs. That is what marked the cultural divide between me and my local friend Tommy -- not our debate about whether colonialism had benefitted Ghana or otherwise.
So, while I agree that I'd far rather my future children grew up on books rather than television, I would offer this advice: No matter how much weight you put on the intellectual advancement of your offspring, this will always be eclipsed by the weight that they attach to understanding, digging, grokking and being part of the growing-up of their generation.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Interesting)
You do realize that statement somewhat undermines the point of your sig? It is very difficult for Americans to emigrate to India, at the very least for protectionist if not more emotional reasons, the equivalent of an Indian "green card" is far more rare than the American one.
You have got to understand the difference between immmigration and what Germany refers to "gastarbiter" (guest worker). One is a right to settle permanently in a country and enjoy the fruits therof, the other is a limited permit t
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you forgotten the whole super bowl half-time fiasco with Janet Jackson? She flashes her boob for 1/2 a second and 100,000's of parents complain the next day.
But it's OK if some jerk hijacks your daughter on the internet and sends her to site after site of some of the nastiest p0rn on the net, because he has the right to earn a quick buck.
What happened to the rights of parents to protect their children? And my motives in wanting to protect my daughters are no
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, gosh, it's terrible for a young child to see a boob.
But it could be worse.
Imagine if the child were to...say...suck milk from the boob? Put his or her little mouth all over the nipple?
It's just obscene. The child would never recover. Might as well kill the kid and start all over again.
What happened to the rights of parents to protect their children?
It's only protecting your children when there is A DANGER. Children have bodies. Dangly bits are perfectly normal parts of bodies. Teaching kids that their own bodies are obscene or bad, that it could harm others to catch a glimse of such things... THAT is truly dangerous.
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
I never said I gave her unrestricted access. But I don't want it happening whether I'm sitting right there or not.
The guy was deliberately targeting childrens domain names (among others) and sending them to porn sites. Who else did he mean to send there? This is no different than standing in front of an elementary school handing out copies of hustler. You should plan on going to jail (as opposed to someone handing out porn on the strip in Vegas).
Re:Conflicting Feelings (Score:5, Funny)
Definitely. And I have more commentary at my blog sites, slapdot.org, smashdot.org, slashfot.org, skashdot.org and slashdot.dot.org
finally... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:finally... (Score:5, Informative)
goatse.cx != goatsex
goatse = GOATSE
(G)uy
(O)pens
(A)ss
(T)o
(S)how
(E)e
goatse is thus perfectly appropriate.
Damn... was(Re:finally...) (Score:5, Funny)
I know this is bad..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I know this is bad..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I know this is bad..... (Score:3, Interesting)
He's gonna have to go a bit farther than that. Like some country that doesn't have an extradition treaty [insightmag.com] with the US.
Relevant portion of article:
Meanwhile, however, Attorney General John Ashcroft recently signed two low-publicity multilateral agreements with the European Union (EU) on June 25. Known as the Extradition and Mutual Legal Assista
no you wouldn't (Score:5, Informative)
Re:no you wouldn't (Score:5, Funny)
err, this is slashdot, the odds are good that prison isn't much different than moms basement, no windows, well except for the whole never bending at the waist thing and he would have...
wait
for
it...
One Meeelion Dollars
note to self, slashdot and alcohol are a bad mix.
Re:no you wouldn't (Score:5, Informative)
Most federal criminals are white-collar offenders. Afterall, typical murderers, armed robbers and rapists all end up in a state prison, not a federal one. Most federal crimes involve business transactions gone fraudlent. Since the feds have a lot more non-violent offenders, and the ability to transport offenders from state to state, they can group all of the white-collar criminals together into a Club Fed situation in a way that the states just can't.
Re:no you wouldn't (Score:5, Informative)
Again, I say this out of experience. The lower security places called FCI's, are where people go for lower class cases, but keep in mind that as time goes on, people get their classifications lowered, so you end up seeing people who have done 20 years in a camp or a low who are on their way out in as much as 10 years. For the most part though, you won't find anyone with a 10 year sentence in a low, and someone with more than 5 years in a camp (no gate prison). So it goes like this... ADSX/Supermax = Kiss your ass goodbye. USP = 10+ years mainly violent cases, drug cases, ^*other, Mediums 10-* years (most violent), FCI's (low security) mainly on mil bases 1 month - 10 years, Camps = 1 month - 5 years. Heavy white collar crimes no security risks. Pedophiles, sex offenders, anyone with violence could never go to one of these because you have to have what's called community custody, and you don't get that if you pose a threat to society.
So while offtopic, this is club fed 101.
He probably won't get to keep it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:He probably won't get to keep it (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not in jail for showing children porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:He's not in jail for showing children porn (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this means... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I guess this means... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for goatse, it's not exactly deliberately misleading people. any simpleton can see that there might be something untoward about it, or at the least, not have a preset expectation toward it.
Re:I guess this means... (Score:5, Funny)
For the goat-lovers amongst us the domain name probably caused them great mental anguish due to its misleading nature.
Re:I guess this means... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that worries me about the law is this: what constitutes "use"? What constitutes "using" a misleading domain name? What this guy did surely does. But what about posting a link in which you try to trick people into seeing the goatse man by using a yahoo.com redirect. Is that using a misleading domain name (yahoo.com) to manipulate someone into viewing obscene content? The law itself does not say "use = registering a domain name and setting up a website at". I don't have any problem with this guy getting prosecuted; but I worry that the law is so vague that half the trolls on
Re:I guess this means... (Score:3, Interesting)
Whitehouse.com and goatse.cx are in big trouble.
It's worth pointing out that Whitehouse was a leading publication in the UK Men's Jazz Mag genre way before the World-Wide Web became popular. Sheesh, I spent my early teens stealing coins from my Mum's purse to buy copies of Whitehouse; ah, the thrill of riding down to Southfields for my monthly Saturday-morning cheapie. with the wind blowing in my hair etc etc...
Therefore, I don't think the name whitehouse.org is in any way misleading. Indeed, I find
Re:I guess this means... (Score:5, Interesting)
The office of head of the executive branch certainly deservives a governemnt website, but that should be president.gov, or some other domain that makes it clear that what comes from the Office of the Preseident is important, but it is not necessarily the opinion of the entire government, and it certainly is never the opinion of the building itself.
The people who actually operate the White House rarely have much to say to the media. A "White House Spokesperson" usually is a term used for somebody who is speaking on behalf of the President and cabinet-level officals. They are people who work in the office space inside The White House, but they don't exactly work for the White House. There's a big difference between the owners of a building and the tenants of a building...
Jail time?? (Score:5, Funny)
Domain name typ-O's and liknesses (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Domain name typ-O's and liknesses (Score:5, Interesting)
Which has nothing to do with this story... this is about intentionally misleading people to view obscene material. As trashy as those X-10 ads may be, they're not actually obscene.
(Thank the Maker for the popup blocker in the Googlebar!)
Or for Mozilla, when you have the choice. (And for some reason, googlebar causes all sorts of hangs when I install it at work... on any machine. So,
Shameful (Score:5, Interesting)
Mucho Gracias to the kind folks who wrote the main apps and extensions for Mozilla and the like... people don't surf the web or use email only to be bludgeoned with it. Moz and family puts users back in control!
I really didn't intend to make a blatant ad for Mozilla, was just recalling recent trauma from using IE 5 on an unpatched Win2K machine, and I was merely trying to find a happy place...
OK, so... (Score:5, Interesting)
Scumbags deserve it (Score:5, Insightful)
Kudos to the authorities for clamping down on this dude.
I for one am glad (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I for one am glad (Score:5, Funny)
Consider yourself lucky you don't accidentally type hotmale.com [hotmale.com] instead!
About time (Score:5, Interesting)
Misleading domain names aren't the only problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Misleading domain names aren't the only problem (Score:5, Insightful)
How on Earth do they come up with these acronyms?? (Score:5, Funny)
And the PATRIOT act as well...
Do they have some software that generates acronyms that also happen to be (seemingly) appropriate words??
Re:How on Earth do they come up with these acronym (Score:5, Funny)
Too light of a sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
If he had made the statement that he misspelled the domain names to attract adults, thats one thing, but in his case intention is everything. He should of received 30 years.
Can I sue??? (Score:5, Funny)
There is this one site called www.hornyteens.com , and after very careful research, I think some of those girls are actually probably in their early twenties, or late twenties. I want my money back.
This guy has had 3.5 years to learn (Score:3, Insightful)
My mom has a German Shepherd that learns faster than this for godssakes.
Deterrence (Score:5, Interesting)
That's no deterrent... Make a million, someone tells you to stop. You still have the million. Where's the deterrance?
On the other hand, most people don't want to go to prison. Prison is bad. It scares people who aren't already criminals. What are you going to answer on the next job interview about what you were doing the past two years? "Oh, I was in prison because of a stupid federal law. And I learnt all about the bizzare kinds of sex that I was redirecting people to first-hand." Or first-arse. Whatever.
The good and the bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh sure... Someone could argue that partybeef.com could be typed in by a 6 year old looking for snacks for her friends, (not a real site, so use your imagination...) Next thing you know the site operator ends up as a piece of party beef in a federal prison because someone decided it was obviously misleading.
What is obvious to me is that the next step will involve going after anyone who puts objectionable material on the net without it being clearly labeled, registered, and hidden behind a credit card required brown paper wrapper page.
And what about unintentionally misleading Google results [google.com]? When will they hold us liable for that? This one actually disturbs me a little.
Also... (Score:4, Funny)
Messed up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond even the issue of being a scum bag with arguably scummy people, using sites popular with children with a method that drags in more kids than adults. I think this makes him the kingof the scumbags.
Lock him up... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a sick person. He targeted children. Not only that, but if people can make a stink about Lindows because it sounds too much like windows and causes confusion in adults at computer stores, then how can they let this slide where he tricked children to watching porn? What the hell is this guys value system? Making 10 cents off each child he tricks to going to a porn site? Was the 10 cents worth it for him? I would like to hear what he has to say in prision, when he is forced to look at jail porn, live and first hand.
Dorm.Sex.party - Cell-block.assrape.festival (Score:4, Funny)
Superstitious stupidity (Score:3, Interesting)
Is $1, 000 000 worth 30 months jail? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's not the first jail sentence (Score:3, Informative)
-- b
Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
The government is -not- your mom. They shouldn't be required to take these kinds of measures because some soccer mom saw her child get re-directed to some hot fisting action.
If there's any 'america' left in Americas geeks, some smart kid will capitalize on soccer mom paranoia; by writing an app which catalogs all these re-directs and makes sure that the user never sees the end result of that offensive URL. Then sell it for mucho coin. Yay for Free Enterprise and not Socialism!
Profit??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course not! You're going to just close the window and try again to type in the site you wanted to go to in the first place.
If you wanted porn, it's easy enough to find yourself. Even if you were the type to pay for it, would you really go to the source with in-your-face pop-up advertising? Jeesh.
I wouldn't make it illegal, but I can't see ANY possible financial benefits for porn sites to justify this practice.
ICANN dropped the ball (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, well, another reason to get rid of ICANN.
Re:ICANN dropped the ball (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:whitehouse.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:whitehouse.com (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably, thanks to things like Community Standards. Sadly, we seem to live in a world of hyper-sensitive crybabies and professional victims.
Re:Why would he want to mislead children? (Score:5, Informative)
The deal he had with the porn sites had him getting paid for referrals. Not for referrals that actually sign on, but simply the number of referrals. So he was screwing over the people who were paying him, as well.
In fact, that's apparently why he targeted the kids. According to his admission, it wasn't that he had some thing about making kids see porn. It was that kids were more likely to make spelling errors, so they were more likely to come across his typosquatting websites; so if he targeted kids, his referral numbers would be higher.