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A popular teen gossip Web site resurfaced internationally last week after it was shut down last month by its Internet host following an investigation by the Maryland Attorney General.

The site, www.Peoplesdirt.com, relaunched as of June 25, according to the site's founder, Alfredo Castillo.

"We wanted to go somewhere where there would be no legal ramifications," Castillo said.

The site is now hosted by a company in Switzerland, and is also backed up on a Russian server, Castillo said.

Peoplesdirt.com was no longer online as of June 9 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, warning them that the site was full of lewd and controversial topics, and claimed that the site violated GoDaddy.com's terms and conditions.

"The Internet's a little cleaner today," Gansler said on June 10. "Peoples Dirt was serving as a bulletin board for slander and defamation."

Castillo said he would relaunch the site with an international host to avoid being targeted with the same tactics by the attorney general.

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

The Peoplesdirt.com Web site 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.

Castillo would not name the new host, but said it also hosts sites specializing in gambling, video downloads and pornography.

"[Hosting] companies based in the U.S. have proven their true colors," by removing peoplesdirt.com, Castillo said. "I can't really be upset with them though. They're a business and one client out of tens of thousands isn't worth standing up for."

The site does not currently feature advertising—the crux of Gansler's investigation—but it may in the future, Castillo said.