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Mystery buyer acquires vatican.xxx web address

Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leads his weekly audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican November 16, 2011. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini

Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leads his weekly audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican November 16, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

VATICAN CITY | Wed Dec 21, 2011 4:44pm EST

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Wednesday an unknown buyer had snapped up the internet address vatican.xxx, a domain combining its name with an extension reserved for pornographic content.

"This domain is not available because it has been acquired by someone else, but not the Vatican," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Vatican radio.

It was not clear from his statement if the Vatican had tried to acquire the domain in order to prevent future misuse and had been beaten to the punch by the unknown buyer.

Lombardi denied Italian media reports that the Vatican had, like many other organizations including companies, universities and museums, registered the xxx domain to prevent its misuse.

The xxx domains are being launched this month for pornographic content and many organizations have preemptively acquired them so others cannot.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Barry Moody)

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Comments (4)
McBob08 wrote:
Yeah, right! “Unknown Buyer”, my left rosary!

Coming Soon from the Nazi Pope; “Naughty Nunnies, Part VII”. You don’t think they get all their money from tithes, now do you?

Dec 22, 2011 8:06am EST  --  Report as abuse
theslyest wrote:
The church is going to have a hard time convincing the mystery buyer to sell the domain. I wish I had thought of this before…I’d charge a fortune and go on an early retirement…

Dec 22, 2011 6:11pm EST  --  Report as abuse
Eideard wrote:
Retirement income for the pope?

Dec 24, 2011 5:01pm EST  --  Report as abuse
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