Nearly six years after the U.S. Department of Justice seized Backpage.com for its central role in facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking, including involving minors, the notorious domain has resurfaced — now redirecting to a live adult webcam site known as MILFs.com.

The twist comes after the Backpage.com domain, once seized and disabled by federal authorities, was allowed to expire, fell into pending delete status, and was subsequently snapped up and auctioned by domain reseller DropCatch. The domain ultimately sold for $259,500, according to auction records, reigniting public discussion over the site’s dark legacy and the apparent failure to maintain federal control over a high-profile digital property.

Backpage.com was founded in 2004 as a classified ads platform by the company behind Village Voice Media, positioning itself as a rival to Craigslist. By the 2010s, it had evolved into what federal prosecutors would later describe as an “online brothel,” with an adult services section generating hundreds of millions of dollars — much of it from illegal sex ads.

Even after public outcry over Craigslist’s own adult section led to its shutdown in 2010, Backpage ramped up operations. Prosecutors say it knowingly facilitated and profited from prostitution and trafficking, using filters and moderators to sanitize illicit ads just enough to avoid detection.

In April 2018, the DOJ seized Backpage.com and dozens of affiliated domains. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated the site had become the internet’s leading platform for prostitution, including the trafficking of children.

“Backpage has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking, placing profits over the well-being and safety of the many thousands of women and children who were victimized,” said Elizabeth A. Strange, First Assistant U.S. Attorney in Arizona.

Despite the high-profile nature of the case, federal authorities failed to maintain ownership of the domain name after its seizure. With no renewal, the domain expired, was dropped from official registries, and was acquired through an open auction in early 2024.

The DOJ has not publicly commented on the lapse. However, the redirection of Backpage.com to MILFs.com — a webcam platform under the umbrella of modern adult streaming — raises eyebrows. Although no illicit content is associated with the current site, the optics of such a transition are stark given Backpage’s legacy of sex trafficking and legal consequences.

The original Backpage case led to the conviction of multiple operators, including co-founders Michael Lacey, Scott Spear, and John “Jed” Brunst, who were sentenced in 2024 after being found guilty of knowingly facilitating illegal sex work and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.

Carl Ferrer, the company’s former CEO, previously pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against his co-defendants. As part of a broader federal investigation, more than $215 million in assets from Backpage’s operation were forfeited.

Backpage had been linked to nearly 75% of all online child sex trafficking reports received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children before it was taken offline.

One trafficking survivor, who spoke to CBS News in 2017, was just 14 years old when she was forced to advertise on Backpage by her abuser.

“Backpage has not done anything to ensure the safety of the kids on there, period,” her mother said in a televised interview.

The sale of Backpage.com via DropCatch suggests a potential lapse in long-term domain management by the government, despite its importance as evidence and public symbolism in the fight against trafficking. While the domain content itself was purged, the name retained significant notoriety and digital traffic value.

“Letting a seized domain like Backpage.com expire and redirect to another adult site is at best an oversight, at worst a serious blow to the credibility of federal enforcement,” said a digital policy analyst at a Washington-based internet law think tank.

Though the new owner has not been publicly identified, the $259,500 purchase price reflects the enduring commercial value of the name — regardless of its sordid history.

The Backpage saga remains a landmark case in debates over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, platform liability, and government intervention in online sex work. The seizure of the site was widely cited in support of FOSTA-SESTA, a controversial 2018 law that carved out exceptions to Section 230 for platforms that facilitate sex trafficking.

As for the domain itself, its reappearance under a different adult-facing brand underscores the tension between internet commerce, public safety, and the long-term effectiveness of digital enforcement measures.

Backpage.com may be gone in name, but its legacy — and now its URL — lives on in ways few could have anticipated.