How Backpage Became MILFS.com 

MILFS: Moms I'd Like To Federally Seize? 

The Backpage.com URL now redirects to MILFS.com, a webcamming platform that offers users live erotic chat and pornographic shows with a cornucopia of women who may or may not actually be moms.

In case anyone isn't aware, here's what the acronym MILF stands for…though as Julian Sanchez quipped on BlueSky, perhaps in this instance, it could also stand for "Moms I'd Like to Federally Seize."

Backpage was once a thriving platform for classified advertisements, particularly favored by people posting "adult" ads. But the federal government decided there was too much free speech happening on Backpage, so it seized the website and put its founders and executives on trial for facilitating prostitution.

From April 6, 2018, until very recently, visitors to Backpage.com would be greeted by the logos of several federal agencies and a notice stating: "backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division." It looked like this:

(screenshot from Backpage.com before redirect)

 

 

Here's what visitors to Backpage.com today will see:

(Screenshot from MILFS.com)

How did Backpage.com come to be redirected to MILFS.com?

It seems as if the feds let the Backpage.com domain name lapse, and ICF Technology—the company behind MILFS.com—snapped it up.

According to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Backpage.com registry information was updated on February 21, 2025 and again on February 24.

The site is now registered to NameBrightPrivacy.com, but this is a proxy.

"Proxy services allow a domain name to keep certain identity and contact details from appearing in public Whois information," notes ICANN. "The proxy service becomes the registered name holder of record, and its identity and contact information is displayed in Whois data."

ICANN lists the Backpage.com registrar—the entity responsible for registering and maintaining a domain name—as DropCatch.com, a domain auction site.

"Each day, thousands of domain names fail to be renewed and become available to the public," the DropCatch website states. "A small percentage of these domains have a high value potential, so they can be utilized for monetization or development." DropCatch snaps up these high-value domains and auctions them off.

It's unclear how much the Backpage.com domain went for. ICF Technology did not respond to my requests for comment.

It's also unclear whether the federal government intentionally let the Backpage.com lapse or whether it was an oversight. It's not even clear what agency would be responsible for the maintenance of seized domains. The FBI did not provide comment.

In any event, it's unbelievable that authorities would have simply let such a high-profile and controversial domain name expire. Surely, they could have found a nonprofit group in alignment with the government's goals to take it—a group opposed to sex work or an anti-trafficking group. Or the government could have held onto it and had it redirect to something like the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Yes, the idea that Backpage mainly or intentionally facilitated sex trafficking is a myth. But it's a myth that was pushed by government actors for more than a decade. From the feds' perspective, wouldn't redirecting the Backpage website to an anti-trafficking resource make sense?

Simply letting Backpage.com go up for auction seems like a missed opportunity for federal authorities, both in terms of money and message promotion. But, boy, what a win for MILFS.com and for irony.

On some level, Backpage.com now redirecting to MILFS.com is hilarious. After all the time that authorities spent preening about stopping sex work by taking down Backpage, the website now leads to a platform wholly and explicitly devoted to selling sexuality. And the MILFS.com website also links to Cougar.com, a membership platform that bills itself as facilitating "passionate interactions." The situation exposes the lie at the center of the misguided crusade against Backpage—the idea that the government taking down one website could ever stop or even make a dent in people engaging in and seeking sex work.

But, on another level, the way this turned out just makes me angry.

The government put Backpage's founders and former executives through hell for years because they provided a forum for adult advertising. Two of them are currently in prison. One is out on bail but still facing prison. One is dead, having taken his own life after years of being "backed into a corner, and pretty much impoverished" by what he saw as a "political prosecution" stemming from his years as a government-critical newspaper publisher.

Federal authorities claimed all along that this was about stopping Backpage's facilitation of prostitution—not a political prosecution over Backpage founders Michael Lacey and James Larkin's years of publishing sometimes spicy newspapers or mocking and exposing powerful politicians. Not an act of vengeance against Larkin and Lacey for daring, loudly and repeatedly, to tell the government that they wouldn't squelch protected speech.

Then the government went and let a new group of tech executives facilitate people peddling companionship and sex through Backpage.com. After everything the feds put Lacey, Larkin, and their colleagues through—not to mention the many sex workers who relied on Backpage—they couldn't even keep up the charade that it made a difference.

Comments

[Gaear Grimsrud]

First Trump fucks up the signal thing and now we find out he's giving away domain names. We were promised a meritocracy and we get the keystone cops.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Maybe Kamala will come full circle on mybackpage and find a job Americans are willing to pay her for.

[InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcasia’s disloyal opposition)]

Well, Kamala does suck.

[Chumby]

She could swallow her pride and become a spitting image of how many view her.

[Randy Sax]

If she spits it means she doesn't actually love the American public.

[Chumby]

She could do a recurring series where the male performers finish on her face titled:

Spackles Cackles

[mad.casual]

Full circle? She's like the political career Georgia O' Keefe of Venn Diagram-mobius strip-overlapping circles of "jobs Americans are willing to pay her for" and "putting her head down and getting to work".

Given on how far she got on an abject lack of any sort of talent whatsoever, she makes Anita Hill, Monica Lewinsky, Christine Blasey-Ford, *and* Hillary Clinton look like common housewives and street walkers.

[Chumby]

You can’t turn a housewife into a ho

[Marshal]

pornographic shows with a cornucopia of women who may or may not actually be moms

...and whom you almost certainly don't want to fuck.

[Your Therapist]

Hold on, let’s not be too quick to judge.

[John F. Carr]

Can the government give away a .com domain name or does it have to sell the name to the highest bidder?

[Rossami]

If you own a domain name (whether because you bought it or because you seized it), you can transfer it to any other owner you like. I suppose there might be some federal contracting regulation somewhere that puts some bounds on that power when the government is the holder but as we've seen in exposes over the course of years, those controls are at best quite weak. Cronyism is rampant and I have no reason to believe it would be any less possible in this scenario.

Now if you're talking about ICANN, a) that's not the government and b) they sell on a fixed price, first-come-first served model. You only get to 'highest bidder' if a squatter grabs the domain first, then puts it up for sale independently.

[mad.casual]

Given the fact that they took infowars.com and gave it to the people who sued him for saying they were activists (and Reason has now published more on the redirect from backpage.com to milfs.com than they have on inforwars.com), I'm pretty sure it's a "Fuck You, we'll do whatever we want with it." situation.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

It's funny, reasons commitment to free peach ends just before Alex Jones.
It almost like they are retarded hypocrits

[Chumby]

How is JD Vance wrong about MILFS?

[Ajsloss]

He was correct on the one he chose.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

More importantly, what does Pricilla Villarreal think about how JD Vance is wrong about MILFs?

[Rick James]

on BlueSky

lol

[Chumby]

No Mastodon?

[Ajsloss]

Extinct.

[Rick James]

*looks around*

Did I just read a 800 word thinkpiece on how someone registered an available domain name?

[mad.casual]

With a bonus tutorial on what the word MILF means, fellow "teen"!

[Incunabulum]

>In any event, it's unbelievable that authorities would have simply let such a high-profile and controversial domain name expire.

How long are you expecting them to hold on to it? We don't even store murder evidence forever. And, I mean, Backpage might be important to *you* ENB, but Kamala got her scalp, shot her load, and is now irrelevant and so to is Backpage.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Would that have been Kamala Harris' US Department of Justice in April 2018?

An 800-word article which carefully avoids mentioning which President initiated the persecution of Backpage's founders...

[damikesc]

I love ENB's theory that the government should be as obsessed with the licensing of Backpage as she is. Nobody, not even the former owner, is as obsessed as she is.

And I'd be FAR more empathetic if such dead silence was not following things she does not care about.

Reason is wasting money paying for a hooker editor.

[AT]

But the federal government decided there was too much free speech happening on Backpage

Yea, that's why it did that. Right.

It's also unclear whether the federal government intentionally let the Backpage.com lapse or whether it was an oversight.

Maybe they just didn't care. The prostitution ring was busted up, and that was the goal.

ICF Technology did not respond to my requests for comment.

Because you're not a real journalist.

Two of them are currently in prison. One is out on bail but still facing prison. One is dead, having taken his own life after years of being "backed into a corner, and pretty much impoverished" by what he saw as a "political prosecution" stemming from his years as a government-critical newspaper publisher.

What IS it with you people at Reason? What is your obsession with ginning up empathy for people who are the ABSOLUTELY LEAST deserving people of any?

Do you really think anyone's going to squirt tears for these degenerates?

Oh my gosh, its terrible what happened to that murdering rapist psychopath border jumper who ended up in El Salvador. Let's take his side over, y'know, sanity. What makes you think smut-peddling human traffickers are going to rate any higher?

Seriously. I want to know. How deluded does a person have to be to take the positions that you do, ENB?

But, on another level, the way this turned out just makes me angry.

Please feel free cry into this jug that definitely isn't marked Leftist Tears.

[Bruce D]

What IS it with you people at Reason? What is your obsession with ginning up empathy for people who are the ABSOLUTELY LEAST deserving people of any?

The drug warriors are less deserving. The anti-sex, anti-personal freedom social conservatives, and social conservatives in general, are less deserving. Are Trump and Vance social conservatives? If so, they're less deserving. The anti-libertarian conservatives and liberals are less deserving.

[Bruce D]

Anyone who initiated the use of force or threatens to do so is less deserving.

[AT]

Are Trump and Vance social conservatives?

No. There's a reason they're winning liberals over to Team MAGA.

Also, why do you hate morality? It's a pre-requisite to the Constitution and the American Way, y'know.

[Bruce D]

Also, why do you hate morality?

Conservatives and liberals are the one's who hate morality. To the extent their moral principles contradict libertarianism, those supposed "moral" principles are evil.
True OBJECTIVE MORALITY means respect for individual rights, non-initiation of force, not depriving people of consent. These are logically derivable by right reason, by observation and logic. By the Reflexive Property, if A=B then B=A. If A can initiate the use of force against B, then by the Reflexive Property of logic, B can logically use force against A in return or to resist.

It's liberals and social conservatives who hate morality, who hate actual true morality.

Social conservatives conflate their sense of shame with morality. Social conservatives' sense of shame is only a feeling, not a rational objective moral absolute like individual rights are.

Libertarianism is rationally, objectively and morally absolute. Wherever, and to the extent, social conservatism contradicts libertarianism, libertarianism is absolutely morally right and conservatism is absolutely morally wrong. That's not just my opinion. That's absolute moral fact, whether I state so or not.

[AT]

True OBJECTIVE MORALITY means respect for individual rights, non-initiation of force, not depriving people of consent.

Which is conservatism.

Not libertarianism, certainly not liberalism, definitely not leftism - and absolutely not the Anarcho-Marxism that you're trying to obfuscate with all three.

Social conservatives conflate their sense of shame with morality.

Should you feel bad when you take another person's life, or steal from them, or pedo-groom their child - yes or no?

Libertarianism is rationally, objectively and morally absolute.

Libertarianism is Objectivism without a moral grounding. As Rand once put it, "without teeth." A shiny veneer for amoral anarchy. An imaginary playground for children who hate their parents. Never Never Land.

It's not - and never will be - society.

That's absolute moral fact, whether I state so or not.

Only in a state of nature, Bruce. One in which any definition of morality you'd like to apply (including "respect for individual rights, non-initiation of force, not depriving people of consent") can't ever be enforced.

Which makes it meaningless.

[Bruce D]

...respect for individual rights, non-initiation of force, not depriving people of consent.

Which is conservatism.

I wish. Drug prohibition, criminalization of prostitution between consenting adults, censorship Backpage oppression, foreign wars and taxation to support it. Many other issues. Though libertarians and conservatives do agree on many economic issues. Unless conservatism respects individual rights as much as libertarianism, libertarianism is morally superior to conservatism.

Should you feel bad when you take another person's life, or steal from them, or pedo-groom their child - yes or no?

Yes. But, that's not the issue. Those things are wrong regardless of whether one would feel bad about it or not. There are plenty of psychopaths and pedos who would do those things and not feel bad. Those things are wrong because they violate individual rights or deprive consent, independent of any feeling of wrongness. Conservatism relies on feelings of wrongness whereas libertarianism is based on objective observation and hard cold logic. That's why libertarianism is true and morally right and conservatism, where it disagrees with libertarianism, is false and morally wrong.

Libertarianism is Objectivism without a moral grounding.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy. It is based upon an ethics and metaphysics as are all political philosophies, usually an objectivist or natural law metaphysics and ethics, though some libertarians defend libertarianism on religious grounds. Reality is absolute. Anything deduced or inferred from reality using right reason and logic, like libertarianism, is also absolute.

[AT]

Drug prohibition, criminalization of prostitution between consenting adults, censorship Backpage oppression, foreign wars and taxation to support it.

Why do you say those things like they're bad/wrong?

Unless conservatism respects individual rights as much as libertarianism, libertarianism is morally superior to conservatism.

Not if it's turning people into addicts, whores, johns, or enabling America's enemies who are openly hostile to individual rights.

Yes. But, that's not the issue. Those things are wrong regardless of whether one would feel bad about it or not.

Right, but your gripe was about shame. Shame (among other unpleasant emotional states) is a natural indication of wrongdoing. Even dogs understand this (it's where we get the term "hangdog look").

So if we're feeling shame, we naturally have to ask ourselves, "What am I doing that's causing this?"

It's not "feelings of wrongness." It is the NATURAL RESPONSE to engaging in objective wrongdoing. Unless, of course, as you said, we're talking about psychopaths.

Which we're not.

Conservatism relies on feelings of wrongness whereas libertarianism is based on objective observation and hard cold logic.

And yet, despite that claim, it consistently gets so many things very glaringly morally wrong.

Reality is absolute. Anything deduced or inferred from reality using right reason and logic, like libertarianism, is also absolute.

Problem is, libertarians don't really know how to use "reason and logic." They think they do, but they don't. Hence why they consistently end up in absurdities like drug addiction and sex trafficking being considered "good" things.

[Bruce D]

Why do you say those things like they're bad/wrong?

Because they are. The violation of individual rights and oppression is a greater violation, and a worse evil, than the things being prohibited. No one is being forced to do drugs, prostitution, pornography. But doing busts, cops crashing through doors, people being taken into custody i.e. kidnapped , those acts are a lot worse a lot more invasive than someone doing dope or whoring. It's none of the government's or anyone's damned business. The prohibitionists are the evil one's. Drug addiction, prostitution, pornography, may or may not be disgusting or repugnant, depending upon whether one cares or not. I'm indifferent. But, simply because something is disgusting or repugnant does not mean that it is evil to the extent that force is justified to prohibit it. Disgust or repugnance are feelings, not moral absolutes. Reason and individual rights derived using it are absolute; morality based upon feelings is not.

[Bruce D]

Not if it's turning people into addicts, whores, johns...

Libertarianism isn't turning anyone into anything. It's just not stopping them. Whether someone turns into an addict, whore or john is their business, not mine, not yours not the government's. Using force to stop drug use or whoring is morally worse than the drug use and whoring itself.

...or enabling America's enemies who are openly hostile to individual rights.

Prohibition enables U.S. enemies. The drug war created the cartels just like alcohol prohibition created the '20 gangsters and the mafia. Really, are the cartels much more disrespectful of individual rights than the drug warriors are? The cartels forte is producing a substance for a willing user. The drug warriors forte is initiating the use of force to prohibit non-aggressive acts. The drug warriors are as bad or near as bad as the cartels. The U.S. creates its enemies.

[Bruce D]

Right, but your gripe was about shame. Shame (among other unpleasant emotional states) is a natural indication of wrongdoing.

It may be an indication of wrongdoing, but it may not be, rather just embarrassment. The way to know whether it is an actual indication of wrongdoing is to analyze it using reason, not just trust one's feelings.

So if we're feeling shame, we naturally have to ask ourselves, "What am I doing that's causing this?"

Exactly. If we feel shame, we then use reason to determine if it's rationally justified. But we use reason not feelings, ultimately.

It's not "feelings of wrongness." It is the NATURAL RESPONSE to engaging in objective wrongdoing.

Yes. But one could feel shame out of embarrassment, alone. I'm not saying that shame is necessarily a bad thing. But, it needs to be checked by reason to determine if there actually is objective wrongdoing and if the wrongdoing rises to the level that justifies the use of force.

[AT]

No one is being forced to do drugs, prostitution, pornography.

This is such stupid myopic reasoning.

Go look at a drug addict who is so in thrall of the drugs that he has little to no agency left. Go look at the sex trafficked woman, go see the abuse and indignancy she's endured; how her ONLY value in life now is her sexual function.

You call it a "choice." It's not. Maybe at some point there was some kind of a choice, but eventually it stopped being one. The individual has been stripped of their individualism and is now ONLY their dependency.

Go take a look at a tent city sometime. Go see the streetwalkers on skid row some time. You think that's a point in the win column for "individual rights" and against "oppression?" (And that's not even getting into all the crime and evil that is working behind the scenes to create said tent city and skid row.)

This is why libertarians never win anything. Their utopia is ultimately so ass-backwards (not to mention detached from reality) that nobody can get on board with it. SO myopic.

Drug Addiction is not accurately illustrated by the movie Half Baked. Prostitution is not accurately illustrated by the movie Pretty Woman. You think it is, but you're wrong.

It's none of the government's or anyone's damned business.

Do you live in a Constitutional society that empowers a government to facilitate said society by the consent of the governed?

Yes or no Bruce. Do you live in one of those, or do you not?

And if you do, then why do you resent it so much?

And if you don't, then wouldn't you like to?

I'm indifferent.

No, you're amoral. There's a difference.

Libertarianism isn't turning anyone into anything. It's just not stopping them.

Exactly. But here's what you don't get. Sometimes, ENB, people need to be stopped.

If a crazy man were out there stark naked in the public street in front of a preschool swinging his dingdong around singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Weiner" at the top of his lungs - hey, he's not harming anyone. What he does is his business. Not mine, not the governments. He's not encroaching on property rights. He's not interfering with anyone's right to exist. He's just offending your feelings. There are acts a lot worse and a lot more invasive. I can keep cribbing from your idiotic argument however long you want.

He's swinging his dingdong around in front of a whole bunch of kids.

That person needs to be stopped. By force if necessary. The same goes for the junkie shooting up, the same goes for the trick advertising her wares, the same goes for the would-be jihadi screaming "Death to America" on a college campus lawn.

That's not just their business, ENB. It's mine, it's yours, and it's our representative government's.

Prohibition enables U.S. enemies.

Not as much as amorality and anarchy does.

The mafia is a contained and limited problem. A persistent one, but one that can be dealt with (or at least kept at bay).

Gomorrah, on the other hand, is the utter failure and fall of a nation-state.

The U.S. creates its enemies.

No, they are created out of a malevolent desire to exploit the weaknesses of humans seeking vice and its eventual self-destruction.

We just kill them.

Or, at least we used to. And should start doing again.

It may be an indication of wrongdoing, but it may not be, rather just embarrassment.

Do you know the difference between shame and embarrassment? Because, I kinda don't think you do, given the way you phrased that throughout your reply.

[Bruce D]

This is such stupid myopic reasoning.
Go look at a drug addict who is so in thrall of the drugs that he has little to no agency left. ....

You call it a "choice." It's not. Maybe at some point there was some kind of a choice, but eventually it stopped being one.

The addictive nature of various drugs are universally known. The addicts chose to do those drugs knowing full well their addictive qualities. They chose that lifestyle as is their right. If the drugs were legal, they'd be so cheap the addicts could support their habits on their paychecks, just the same as alcoholics. There's plenty of functional drug addicts. If they want treatment, there's plenty of places that will treat them for free. If they want to live that way, that's their business, not mine, not the government's, not yours.

[Bruce D]

You call it a "choice." It's not. Maybe at some point there was some kind of a choice, but eventually it stopped being one. The individual has been stripped of their individualism and is now ONLY their dependency.

There's plenty of free addiction treatment available. If they prefer the drugged lifestyle, that's their business, not mine, not yours no matter how much pity you FEEL, not the government's. It may be a tragedy in your eyes, but it's not an evil justifying the use of force.

[AT]

The addictive nature of various drugs are universally known. The addicts chose to do those drugs knowing full well their addictive qualities. They chose that lifestyle as is their right.

But WE don't choose their lifestyle. The rest of us don't WANT addicts shuffling and shambling down our public thoroughfares. The rest of us don't WANT public health dollars being wasted on these people (though I'm curious as to whether you agree with the following two words: Repeal EMTALA). We don't want rehabs. We don't want methadone clinics. We don't want skid row.

What about the rest of us, Bruce? GFY, because the drug addict's redeeming qualities are....?

A small city, population 999,999, has a public park where 1 guy just keeps taking a dump all over the pathways. Why does that 1 worthless degenerate outweigh the 999,999 normal people in your book?

[Widhalm19]

Good grief ... fat, middle-aged suburban housewives will do ANYTHING for attention. Yet, somehow most under 40-year old women are even worse .... narcissistic, family-hating, disconnected from reality. Perhaps the 19th Amendment should seriously be reconsidered.

[Bruce D]

...most under 40-year old women are even worse .... narcissistic, family-hating, disconnected from reality.

Stop complaining. Be glad they're not having kids.

[AT]

Most lefties can't. They're out sterilizing themselves because Orange Man Bad.

[Liberty_Belle]

Who is worse the stuff you don't like, or the man so desperate that he pays for the privilege of the stuff you don't like ? Maybe the 19th should only let women vote since men can't seem to keep it in their pants.