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Lawsuit targets Million Dollar Homepage

Joris Evers Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Joris Evers covers security.
Joris Evers
After being hit by a denial of service attack that downed the Million Dollar Homepage site, British student Alex Tew now faces a lawsuit from one of the advertisers on the site.

The winner of the last 1,000 pixels, which sold for US$38,100 on eBay, is threatening to sue because the Web site was offline for six days until Wednesday, the Financial Times reported in its online edition on Thursday.

Eliger Kliger, owner of milliondollarweightloss.com, an online retailer of dieting products, won the auction for the advertising space last week, just before the Million Dollar Homepage succumbed to a denial of service attack.

No legal action has yet been taken, but an attorney for milliondollarweightloss.com told the Financial Times he was preparing to sue over breach of contract and negligence. The main complaint is that the advertisement did not go up immediately after the auction.

The Million Dollar Homepage was launched by Tew, who successfully raised $1 million by selling ad space for $1 per pixel. The site was battling back a DoS onslaught that began last week after an extortion attempt by a cybercriminal.