Pope Squatter hands over domains to charity
 

The Florida man who squatted on half a dozen possible Papal names -- including the one eventually chosen by former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI -- said Thursday that he would be turning over the domains to a New York-based charity.

"I am donating the pope domains and my site's ad revenue from this crazy week to Modest Needs," said Rogers Cadenhead, who describes himself as a writer of technology books, in his blog. Cadenhead described Modest Needs as "like a charitable eBay: They match up donors with people who have short-term, under-$1,000 emergencies (such as repairs to the family's only car), helping them get out of the crisis."

He did make an effort to contact the new Pope via Benedict's brand-new e-mail address to ask if the church wanted the benedictxvi.com domain. "I am concerned that my 'Subject: Free Domains' e-mail might not get through the Holy See's spam filters," Cadenhead said.

The Vatican, which has its own top-level domain of .va, assigned [email protected] as Ratzinger's inbox. (In Italian, it's [email protected].)

Earlier Thursday, Cadenhead said he'd grabbed the winning domain, and the five others, "to keep them away from pornographers, not grab a domain for some kind of papal superstore."

Cadenhead did acknowledge getting at least one offer: from a gambling site.

I would laugh my balls off if 'Modest Needs' went and sold them onto some gambling site for a ton of cash.

What an idiot.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I'd keep the money and run!

I would keep the money

Should have put it on eBay. Best thing I could have done with my name :1orglaugh