The ownership rights of the Utah Home Education Association’s website expired without the knowledge of the group, according to an Associated Press report, which said that an adult webmaster snatched up the URL and placed adult content on the site.
Users who typed in the old address looking for information aimed at the more than 7,000 home-school families in the state were confronted with a page containing graphic sexual images.
"I'm not a fan or an advocate of much government or global regulation of anything," UHEA President Jon Yarrington said. "But when people refuse to be moral and decent and do what society expects them to do, then somebody has to step in and smack them."
According to Ken Wallentine, an investigator for the Utah attorney general’s office, the group may have no state law remedy against the new website operator.
“If the UHEA let it expire, it’s not a crime,” Wallentine said.
Yarrington said that the organization is considering taking its case to either ICANN or federal court.
"Freedom is a double-edged sword," Yarrington said. "It can be used for much good and it can be used for much evil."
In the meantime, Yarrington said he would try to warn as many people as he could about the change in address.
The correct URL for the group is UHEA.org or UHEA.com.