A ‘revenge porn’ website containing illicit photographs of women without their permission has been shut down by its host site, according to reports.
GoDaddy.com has shuttered the site, Texxxan.com, citing copyright infringement, attorney John S. Morgan told the Houston Chronicle.
Morgan had filed a class action lawsuit against the site on behalf of more than two dozen local women who said their photographs were posted without their permission.
The lawsuit claims the website is ‘designed to cause humiliation and emotional distress.’
The suit alleges invasion of privacy, gross negligence, emotional distress and civil conspiracy on the part of the website operators.
Texxxan.com, which officially went dark last week, is referred to as ‘revenge porn’ because so many of the images are presumably obtained and shared by jilted ex-lovers.
Morgan told the Chronicle that GoDaddy was planning to share the IP addresses for the site’s operators and users within two weeks.
‘This is a form of cyber human trafficking,’ Morgan said, ‘because they take photos of women for the purpose of dehumanizing them, for the purpose of degrading them, and they go even further.’
The site had been allowing people to anonymously assemble photo galleries of formerly private images accompanied by victims’ names, home and email addresses, and other biographical information.
Some of the photos had been of underage girls, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
One of the site’s victims, 27-year-old expecting mom Kelly Hinson, told the Chronicle that last week she was shopping at a Walmart when a man walked up to her and said, ‘You’re Kelly, right?’ and then went on to explain how he had saved pictures of her, which were taken by her late ex-boyfriend, onto his computer.
‘I literally ran off. I ran off,’ Hinson told the paper.
The ‘revenge porn’ website Texxxan.com is on the cusp of being sued for invasion of privacy.
She was quoted saying that people on the site were anonymously posting where she lives and were making chilling statements, including one suggestion that she abort her unborn child ‘with a rusty coat hanger.’
Hinson reportedly went to the police and to two lawyers for help, but her complaints were not taken seriously and she was told nothing could be done.
Another victim, Hollie Toups, told reporters the site contained semi-nude photos of her that she had sent to an ex-boyfriend, but she also uncovered self-portraits she had taken just to monitor her progress from an exercise regimen.
Hinson and Toups are among the more than two-dozen women named as plaintiffs in a petition for damages and class-action certification filed last week in district court in Orange County, Texas.
In the documents, reviewed by MailOnline, attorney John S. Morgan accuses Texxxan.com of existing ‘to cause severe embarrassment, humiliation and emotional distress’ to the women who have unwittingly had their pictures posted on it.
Hinson and Toups are among the more than two-dozen women named as plaintiffs in a petition for damages and class-action certification filed last week in district court in Orange County, Texas.
In the documents, reviewed by MailOnline, attorney John S. Morgan accuses Texxxan.com of existing ‘to cause severe embarrassment, humiliation and emotional distress’ to the women who have unwittingly had their pictures posted on it.
