An American who registered the name BenedictXVI.com promises to not sell it to whether a pornographer or a free casino games company
An American who registered the Internet name BenedictXVI.com before the new pope was chosen said Wednesday that he had not worked out what to do with it but was pretty sure it would be a sin to sell it to a pornographer.
Florida resident Rogers Cadenhead, who describes himself as the author of several technology books, said that he registered six domain names earlier this month based on names he thought the new pope might pick.
"I think I was the second-most excited person on the planet when they announced the name," he told Reuters, adding that the euphoria quickly faded as his Web server started to buckle under the weight of an estimated 1,000 hits a minute.
As well as Benedict XVI--the name chosen by German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on his election on Tuesday--Cadenhead registered for a nominal fee ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com and PiusXIII.com.
An attempt to visit BenedictXVI.com redirects the reader to Cadenhead's own Web site, on which he rejects the suggestion that he might be planning to cash in by selling the site to pornographers since they would be willing to pay most for it.
"Whatever I decide, it's going to be guided by a desire not to anger 1.1 billion Catholics," said Cadenhead, who says he has already rejected an offer from a gambling site. "Even though I'm a lapsed Catholic, I'm not lapsed that far."
He added he was considering his options for the site, but if the pope's people were to approach him to discuss taking over the site, he might make some requests.
"I'd like one of those big papal hats, and maybe three days and two nights at the Vatican hotel they built for the conclave," he said.
Cadenhead said he has already recouped his modest $72 investment in the six papal domain names with $77 in advertising revenue over the last 24 hours.
The Vatican has its own Web site and the address BenedictXVI.va does not exist, but a number of other variations of the new pope's name have been snapped up.
Benedict16.com and BenedictXVI.de are for sale--the latter with a list price of 1,000 euros ($1,300) from a seller who is also offering Pope-Benedictxvi.com and similar German language names.
An ostensibly more altruistic group has registered Benedictxvi.org and is promising to build a fan site with news, pictures and information about Benedict XVI.
"Would you like to help build a great dedication site to our new pope? Please contact us," it says.
