Wednesday, Dec 12, 2012    Text size: 

ADDISON, Texas — The unidentified operators of revenge porn site PinkMeth.com, which vanished from the Internet on Thursday as part of a settlement between VeriSign and a woman whose nude photos were posted without her permission, received more bad news today.

A Texas judge today ordered a temporary injunction that continues to place the domain name on registry lock and hold "indefinitely," or until the case goes to trial in December 2013. (Registry lock and holds effectively place domains on hold and prevent them from appearing in the root zone file.)

Because of PinkMeth operators' previous conduct of allegedly poaching and posting explicit photographs of victims and the possibility of further dissemination over the web, the court said it would issue a temporary restraining order against the site.

PinkMeth includes photos mostly of young females supplemented with their Facebook and Twitter links. Labeled "revenge porn" or "involuntary porn," the genre has picked up steam in the past two years because of its huge traffic base.

Operators continue to market PinkMeth at PinkMeth.so.

In a statement to XBIZ Wednesday, attorney Jason Van Dyke, who represents the woman at the center of lititgation, Shelby Conklin,  said it was his "personal hope that this case will serve as a clear warning to those who continue to abuse women on 'revenge pornography' websites like PinkMeth.com."

Conklin sued the John Doe defendant operators of PinkMeth after it was discovered that they posted nude photos of her without consent. The photos apparently came from a social networking site only accessible using passwords.

VeriSign, which originally was named as a defendant in the suit because of its status as registry operator for .com addresses, settled with Conklin last week and placed a lock and hold on PinkMeth.com

Conklin said that because of the nude pics appearing on PinkMeth, she won't be able to obtain a career in law enforcement; she said she even fears sexual assault and has "felt compelled to borrow a firearm from a family friend to protect herself against the possibility of a sexual assault in her own home."

She is seeking punitive damages of more than $1 million for intrusion on seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, appropriation of her name and likeness and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Operators of PinkMeth were unreachable at post time.