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The Web site, Peoplesdirt.com, was no longer online as of Tuesday afternoon after its Internet host, GoDaddy.com, removed the site, according to Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler.

Gansler sent letters to GoDaddy.com and advertisers for Peoplesdirt.com in recent weeks, warning them that the site is full of lewd and controversial topics, and claiming that the site violated Go Daddy's terms and conditions.

"The Internet's a little cleaner today," Gansler said Wednesday morning. "Peoples Dirt was serving as a bulletin board for slander and defamation."

The Web site has come under fire in recent months in Montgomery County. On May 11, a former Walt Whitman High School student posted a death threat on the site, and it has been temporarily shut down twice since December as police investigated it for illegal content.

Peoplesdirt.com works like an online bulletin board on which anyone can register and post comments, many of which have been described by police and parents as vulgar and distasteful and are directed at students. The site has categories for all 50 states and is also broken down by county and high school.

The letter was sent to more than 30 advertisers and highlighted deceptive practices the site used to lure advertisers, said Gansler spokeswoman Raquel Guillory.

When contacted initially by Gansler, GoDaddy.com administrators said they would not remove the site.

"This was a case where we were able to point out the discrepancies in the contract between the host and provider, as well as the advertisers," he said. "The Internet is incredibly valuable, but there is a real underbelly. It's up to law enforcement to expose that underbelly."

Gansler said the site failed to meet GoDaddy.com's "Morally Objectionable Activities" provision.

Walt Whitman Principal Alan Goodwin said he was relieved to hear the site had been removed.

"I'm just real happy that officials took it upon themselves to take down something that was destructive and harmful to our students," he said.

The two previous temporary shutdowns were at the request of police as they investigated the site for possible illegal activity, according to Detective John Reinikka, who led the investigation.

Calls to the site's founder, Alfredo Castillo, were not returned.

In past interviews with The Gazette, Castillo said that if the site was removed by Go Daddy he would move it to an international host, where it could skirt any American prosecution.

"Our attorneys have been notified and they believe it's not in the state's right to do this," said Castillo in a May 27 article. "They're directly trying to impair a business, a business that has employees."