Known for its quiet lifestyle and good fishing, Troutdale got a jolt this week when its homepage was hijacked by a Czech Republic-based adult webmaster named Dr. Matthias Moench when its domain registration expired.
Instead of web pages featuring rolling pastures, red barns and cattle grazing, Troutdale.com became home to spicier, adult fare, sending the town’s founding fathers into a tailspin.
"I've spent most of the day trying to clean up the mess of a slimy smut peddler in the Czech Republic," Mike Goss, the site administrator, told the Oregonian.
Goss added that when the site first launched in 2005, in conjunction with the Troutdale art festival, it received an average of a few hundred hits per day. He was unclear after the hijacking how many visitors looking for Troutdale had instead ended up on the adult paysite.
Goss originally was tipped off about the hijacking when the Troutdale City Councilor was emailed by an alarmed site visitor.
According to the Oregonian, only a third of the site was taken over by Dr. Matthias, who has a reputation for snatching up expired websites and converting them into adult sites.
It remains unknown how many Troutdale site visitors opted to subscribe to the porn site.
The Troutdale site is the third commercial website in that area to be hijacked in the past four years, including the Tualatin Valley Firefighters Union and the Forest Grove Chamber of Commerce.